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Clint Eastwood And Barack Obama In: ‘A Fistful Of Bailouts’

Jeff — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:05:38 +0000

Dirty Harry says if you didn’t support the taxpayer bailout of General Motors and Chrysler back in 2008 and 2009, you quit on America … punk!

That’s basically the message of the Clint Eastwood-narrated Super Bowl ad which told U.S. football fans that Detroit ”almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again. … Detroit’s showing us it can be done. And, what’s true about them is true about all of us.”

What’s it like to live in a country where state capitalism—rather than free-market, entrepreneurial capitalism—is ascendant? Well, it’s one where car commercials morph into reelection ads for the incumbent president. It’s clear Team Obama wants to make the bailout of the U.S. auto industry a big selling point to voters. (In Obamaland, American workers at U.S.-based factories of foreign automakers—like the 400,000 folks who work at plants, design centers, and dealership for Toyota, Honda, and Nissan—don’t really count as being part of the U.S. auto industry.)

Here’s what the president said recently at the Washington Auto Show: “When you look at all these cars, it is testimony to the outstanding work that’s been done by workers—American workers, American designers. The U.S. auto industry is back … And it’s good to remember the fact that there were some folks who were willing to let this industry die. Because of folks coming together, we are now back in a place where we can compete with any car company in the world.”

Obama: “Because of folks coming together …”

Eastwood: “But we all pulled together …”

You get the picture.

But not the entire picture, of course. The most effective propaganda doesn’t present outright falsehoods but merely half truths that form a distorted image. View, if you will, a stock chart comparing General Motors (red), Ford (green), and the S&P 500 (blue) index.

Looks like GM still has some work to do to earn investor confidence.

Then there’s the issue of the cost to taxpayers. We received some new info on this late last month:

The U.S. Treasury Department boosted its estimate of government losses in the $85 billion auto bailout by $170 million. In the government’s latest report to Congress this month, the Treasury upped its estimate to $23.77 billion, up from $23.6 billion. Last fall, the government dramatically boosted its forecast of losses on the rescues of General Motors Co., Chrysler Group LLC and their finance units from $14 billion to $23.6 billion. … The Treasury, which initially held a 61 percent majority stake in GM, now holds a 26.5 percent share, or 500 million shares in GM. To break even, the government would need to average $53 per share for its remaining stake. At current prices, the government would lose more than $14 billion on its GM bailout. … The government booked a $1.3 billion loss on its $12.5 billion bailout of Chrysler. As part of its $17.2 billion bailout, the Treasury still holds a 74 percent majority stake in Ally Financial Inc., the Detroit-based auto lender and bank holding company. Ally, formerly known as GMAC, put its IPO on hold indefinitely last year because of market weakness.

Oh, and on top of that $24 million you can add another $13 billion, according to bankruptcy expert David Skeel. He says Treasury estimates “omit the cost of the previously accumulated tax losses GM can apply against future profits, thanks to a special post-bailout government gift. The ordinary rule is that these losses can only be preserved after bankruptcy if the company is restructured—not if it’s sold. By waiving this rule, the government saved GM at least $12 to $13 billion in future taxes, a large chunk of which (not all, because taxpayers also own GM stock) came straight out of taxpayers’ pockets.”

And what if Washington hadn’t forced taxpayers to ride to the rescue? Well, the Center for Automotive Research, an automaker and union-funded think tank, said back in 2008 that “a drawn-out, disorderly bankruptcy proceeding leading to liquidation of the automakers” would cause a loss of nearly two million jobs over the next two years.

But Skeel disagrees:

If the government wanted to “sell” the companies in bankruptcy, it should have held real auctions and invited anyone to bid. But the government decided that there was no need to let pesky rule-of-law considerations interfere with its plan to help out the unions and other favored creditors. … Nor would both companies simply have collapsed if the government hadn’t orchestrated the two transactions. General Motors was a perfectly viable company that could have been restructured under the ordinary reorganization process. … Although Chrysler wasn’t nearly so healthy, its best divisions—Jeep in particular—would have survived in a normal bankruptcy, either through restructuring or through a sale to a more viable company. This is very similar to what the government bailout did, given that Chrysler is essentially being turned over to Fiat.

Things like moral hazard and unintended consequences are of slight concern when you want to be the Motor City Messiah. But who knows, maybe GM will continue to prosper even though its Japanese competitors are now recovering from Japan’s mega-quake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. And maybe GM and Chrysler will eventually boost quality enough to get into the first division of automakers.

But given the history of bailed-out companies — such as Chrysler, for instance — there may be opportunity for Eastwood to star in a sequel.

Written by James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute and published on American Thinker, February 7, 2012.

This post originally appeared at The American Enterprise Institute.

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Obama’s Double Talk on Sky-High Gas Prices

Jeff — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:46:36 +0000

Energy: When gas prices hit $4 a gallon in 2008, candidate Barack Obama said it was due to previous failed energy policies. Now that prices are heading still higher, President Obama calls it progress.

Already, pump prices are higher than they’ve been in previous years, suggesting they will top $4 soon and possibly reach an unprecedented $5 this summer.

President Obama is starting to notice the political implications. So he sent Robert Gibbs — now a top campaign adviser — out to tell the public not to worry.

“Just on Friday, the Department of the Interior issued permits that will expand our exploration in the Arctic,” Gibbs said Sunday. “Our domestic oil production is at an eight-year high, and our use of foreign oil is at a 16-year low. So we’re making progress.”

“Progress” isn’t exactly how Obama described the country’s energy picture in 2008, when gas prices were closing in on $4 a gallon. Then, it was a clear sign of “Washington’s failure to lead on energy,” which was “turning the middle-class squeeze into a devastating vise-grip for millions of Americans.”

“For the well-off in this country,” Obama said in May 2008, “high gas prices are mostly an annoyance, but to most Americans they’re a huge problem, bordering on a crisis.”

In August that year, he declared rising energy costs to be “one of the most dangerous and urgent threats this nation has ever faced” and that gas prices “are wiping out paychecks and straining businesses.”

While Gibbs is right that domestic production has climbed in the past three years, Obama’s policies had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Oil coming from offshore wells was in the pipeline, so to speak, during the Clinton and Bush years, when those permits were issued. And the oil pouring out of North Dakota is the result of drilling on private lands.

Obama, in fact, has made it clear for years that he has no real interest in boosting domestic production.

When President Bush announced plans in 2008 to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling, Obama dismissed it, saying “it would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years.”

“Offshore drilling,” he said, “would not lower gas prices today, it would not lower gas prices next year and it would not lower gas prices five years from now.”

In a big energy speech he gave in August 2008, Obama argued that “if we opened up and drilled on every single square inch of our land and our shores, we would still find only 3% of the world’s oil reserves.”

And while in office, Obama’s done everything he can to limit production — slow-walking offshore permits, killing the Keystone XL pipeline, making it even harder to get oil out of federal lands.

Instead of aggressively expanding oil production, he offered a set of ridiculous alternatives — hugely wasteful “green” energy subsidies, a call for a million electric cars by 2014 and costly fuel economy mandates that won’t make a dent in consumption for decades.

With gas prices up 93% since Obama took office, we’re seeing just how well this approach works.

SOURCE: Investor’s Business Daily, February 21, 2012

Dateline: February 21, 2012

Jeff — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:05:25 +0000

Is The Destruction of Political & Economic system DELIBERATE?
Stooge Geithner Attempts To Defend Tax Increases (Read Full Story)

Inflation Everywhere but MSM Says NOT
It seems every chance the mainstream media (MSM) gets, it tells us things really aren’t that bad. For example, the headline from the Associated Press (AP) said, “Consumer prices on the rise, but inflation outlook is benign.” Who approves the headlines at the AP? Prices are rising, but there is no inflation? Aren’t rising prices the main ingredient of inflation? (Read Full Story)

Foreclosure abuse rampant across U.S., experts say

The audit of almost 400 foreclosures in San Francisco found that 84 percent of them appeared to be illegal, according to the study released by the California city… (Read Full Story)

10 Signs That America Is Decomposing Right In Front Of Our Eyes

The decay of society is so much harder to quantify than economic decline is. The government keeps lots of statistics on things like unemployment and inflation, but it really does not keep track of how sick and twisted people are becoming. Most of us recognize that the character of the American people has changed dramatically over the decades, but unlike the national debt, you can’t easily point to a chart or a graph to show exactly how bad things are getting. (Read Full Story)

The Price Of Gas Is Outrageous – And It Is Going To Go Even Higher
Does it cost you hundreds of dollars just to get to work each month? If it does, you are certainly not alone. There are millions of other Americans in the exact same boat. In recent years, the price of gas in the United States has gotten so outrageous that it has played a major factor in where millions of American families have decided to live and in what kind of vehicles they have decided to purchase. (Read Full Story)

Life, Liberty & All That Jazz…

Addiction to Borrowing Causing Another Bubble – Take a Look
We are trying to get out of a debt led crisis with more debt. The facts show this and we have compiled some of the more troubling data by putting the entire debt market into perspective here [and it clearly shows that] we flat out have an addiction to borrowing. (Read Full Story)

White House predicts 2 million more jobs
In its annual Economic Report of the President, the White House outlined a plan for the economy and predicted 2 million more jobs in 2012. WAHT? At Mickey’s or interns giving BJ’s in the Oval Office while your wife ski’s down the slopes at Aspen??? (Read Full Story)

Meaningless Greek Deal Supposedly Reached
Even if true, the deal won’t last. It may not even last a month. In fact, it may be nothing but a setup to convince Greeks to leave their money in banks. (Read Full Story)

Borrowing Your Way Out of Debt and Other Normal Abnormalities
The private sector has debt to settle. But you can’t settle debt with more debt. No, dear reader, you can’t borrow your way out of debt. But you can sure in-debt your way out of borrowing. That is, you can run up so much debt that no one wants to lend you any more money. (Read Full Story)

Hiding the Elephant: Fort Knox’s Vanishing Act
In 1933, with America five-years deep into The Depression, the stage was set for a magic act of unprecedented proportions. History shows a wicked warlock at work. (Read Full Story)

Dateline: February 20, 2012

Jeff — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:40:29 +0000

Oil surges above $105
U.S. crude-oil futures jump in electronic trading Monday as China, Iran moves spark concern. (Read Full Story)

JP Morgan lifts ’12 Brent-crude target $6 to $118
It said in a note published Sunday that it also raised to forecast for Brent crude for 2013 to $125 a barrel from $121 a barrel. (Read Full Story)

The Latest On America’s Troubling Foreclosure Market

Jeff — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:50:41 +0000

In the past five years the U.S. started the foreclosure process for more than 8.2 million homes. It has completed 4 million of them.

A new report and presentation from RealtyTrac says that there are currently at least 1.4 million U.S. properties in some state of foreclosure. Also, foreclosure activity is expected to rise from the ‘artificially low levels of 2011.’

We drew on the part of the presentation that focuses on what the foreclosure market looks like now, and what to expect in 2012. It highlights the California housing market since it’s the largest in the country.

Click here to see the presentation

SOURCE: Business Insider, February 19, 2012.

February 17, 2012

Jeff — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:13:29 +0000

Aden: U.S. stocks and gold to drive higher
Due to monetary uncertainties and massive debt, central banks are big gold buyers. And so is the public, especially in China, India and other emerging nations. This is keeping demand strong. (Read Full Story)

This is what comes after the Welfare State
The world is now in a deep monetary, financial and economic crisis; this is not a surprising statement as informed people are well aware of this fact. But the crisis is even more profound: it is actually a political crisis and should be even considered as a crisis of our civilization. (Read Full Story)

Will Gold Cleanse The World From Dirty Fiat Currencies?

Although the dollar has held up well in February, it benefits from being the cleanest shirt in the dirty basket of fiat currencies. (Read Full Story)

The Long Arm Of Uncle Sam Got Longer

Needless to say, FinCEN came up with this ‘rule’ all on its own. There was no legislative process, no Congressional debate. Quite simply, a bunch of bureaucrats decided to create a new rule that, amazingly enough, has the same weight and gravitas as a law. (Read Full Story)

Bad Week For Freedom
“We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy.”- Henry Miller (Read Full Story)

Ahnd he vill pump you up!…

Taking Stock as Economy Slides Toward Abyss

When the smoke cleared in 2008 there was little remaining of the U.S. economy besides seekers of handouts from The Government. The Obama Administration generously obliged, conjuring up $7.5 trillion in digital dollars to bail out all institutional comers except Lehman Brothers. Global production fled to the lowest-wage countries… (Read Full Story)

The Deflationary Undertow Before The Inflationary Wave
Dollar inflation and euro inflation is in the offing, in the weeks and months following a war with Iran. The assets that will rise drastically in price will be precious metals, especially silver; agricultural commodities; and oil (Read Full Story)

$4 gas eats up tax cuts
With higher fuel prices, the payroll tax cut is more of an economic cushion than a stimulus. (Read Full Story)

Obama Likes High Gasoline Prices, But Won’t Admit It
If gasoline prices so far are any indication, the pain at the pump will be severe this year. But if you think President Obama cares, you’re wrong. If anything, he’s secretly cheering it on. Already, average pump prices have topped $3.50 a gallon, leading some experts … (Read Full Story)

20 Signs You Might Be A Typical American Worker
Once upon a time, anyone that was relatively competent and willing to work hard could go out and easily get a job that would enable that person to financially support a family. Unfortunately, that is simply no longer true anymore. (Read Full Story)

February 16, 2012

Jeff — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:54:32 +0000

Gold Fire Sale : Buy Now Sale Ends Soon
While citizens cannot prevent central bankers from selling gold from their national vaults, today they are afforded the extraordinary opportunity to buy that very same gold on the open market at prices heavily discounted to their otherwise true market value. Current estimates of today’s true market value of gold – without central bank intervention – is in excess of $10,000 dollars per ounce. (Read Full Story)

California Audit Finds Foreclosure Irregularities
An audit by San Francisco county officials of about 400 recent foreclosures there determined that almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation, according to a report released Wednesday. (Read Full Story)

Mortgage Settlement Not Only Thing Plunging Prices

New data just released revealed delinquency rates for mortgage holders is up in the last quarter of 2011. Now, the national mortgage delinquency rate is 6.01%, up from 5.88% in the third quarter of 2011 according to TransUnion. This downward trend in real estate prices will not be slowed by this bad news. (Read Full Story)

Mom and Pop Investors Are Propping Up Housing Market

Mom and pop investors are snapping up homes and condominiums to rent out all over the country, urged on by depressed home prices, rising rents, and strong rental demand. (Read Full Story)

It’s Halftime In America – The Ad Clint Eastwood Should Have Made
Yeah, Americans are hurting. And their dollars are being used to bail out the chosen ones… (Read Full Story)

Inflation, Stealth Inflation, and How to Maintain Your Purchasing Power Against Both
Make no mistake, inflation is creeping into the system in a big way. And the Fed will not raise interest rates to fight it until it’s far too late. Debt levels are simply too high for the… (Read Full Story)

Biderman Beyond Baffled by B.O.’s Budget
In his best Lewis Black impression, TrimTabs CEO Charles Biderman succinctly destroys the ‘growth’ myth behind Obama’s budget plan as nothing but a handout and money-printing exercise in futility and drain-circling. Based on the $3.8tn budget plan, the TrimTabs truth-seeker notes that current government tax revenues are about $2.4tn, and growing at no more than $100bn each year, making the math surprisingly simple – we spend around $300bn per month and receive only $200bn with the missing $100bn to pay for the US government’s largesse (income shortfall) coming from – ‘printing money’. (Read Full Story)

You Will Not Believe Some Of The Things Americans Are Doing Just To Survive
You might not want to read this article if you have a weak stomach. Most Americans have absolutely no idea what is going on in the dark corners of America, and when people find out the truth it can come as quite a shock. Many of you will not believe some of the things Americans are doing just to survive. Some families are living in sewers and drain tunnels, some families are living in tents, some families are living in their cars, some families will make ketchup soup for dinner tonight and some families are even eating rats. (Read Full Story)

Russell: The Last Currency Standing Will Be Gold
Inflation is the central banks’ method of avoiding the pain of austerity. Inflation is the current economic narcotic that is used by modern nations. It’s the old ‘beggar thy neighbor’ system, and it… (Read Full Story)

Federal Workers Need To Be Part Of The Shared Sacrifice
The Obama budget is a miserably flawed document in so many ways. But it’s more than a mere toxic spending package. It’s also a political compact the president is hoping will generate support. Included in President Obama’s 2013 budget is a pay raise for federal workers… (Read Full Story)

February 14, 2012

Jeff — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:36:03 +0000

Celente on Gold, Silver, War, Systemic Collapse & Social Unrest
The smart people are (buying gold) and more and more people are waking up to it. So the people that are going to survive and thrive are going to be the ones that… (Read Full Story)

Get Positioned: “Gold Rush” Will Cause Gold Stocks to SOAR – Here’s Why

Whatever their reasons, the number of investors wanting exposure to gold is increasing. Many who ignored it a decade ago are now buying. Those who started buying, say, five years ago, continue purchasing… (Read Full Story)

Mortgage Settlement Will Plunge Real Estate Values
It is official. State and federal governments have condoned forgery, perjury and fraud in what’s been called the “robo-signing” foreclosure debacle. Last week, the five biggest banks in America signed on to a $26 billion deal that, basically, lets them off with a slap on the wrist for fraudulently foreclosing on homes in the last few years. (Read Full Story)

Recovery Ending Event: Big Oil Insider Warns of $5 Gas This Year

Some of you may recall what happened the last time gas jumped to all-time highs in the summer of 2008… (Read Full Story)

Hungary’s Needy Given Money to Burn (in Their Furnaces)

Hungary’s central bank, currently at the center of a dispute between the country’s government and the EU, has launched an unusual social programme to counter the effects of the current cold snap. It’s handing out blocks of disused bank notes to the country’s poorest citizens, so that they can be burned for fuel… (Read Full Story)

Credit Plunge Signals ‘All Is Not Well’
European (like US) stocks remain in a narrow range just above the cliff of the unbelievably good NFP print of 2/3. US and European credit markets have lost significant ground since then and it seems equity investors just want to ignore this ‘uglier’ reality for now. (Read Full Story)

Fed must keep policy throttle ‘wide open’
The U.S. Federal Reserve should do all it can to reduce very high unemployment and bring inflation back up to more desirable levels, a top Fed official said on Monday. (Read Full Story)

RECYCLED COMMENTARY: Class War and the Decline of the West
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffett (Read Full Story)

Life, Liberty & All That Jazz…

The Unemployed Are Now Going On Disability And It’s Costing The Government Billions
Got back pain? Are you depressed? Sign up! (Read Full Story)

Obama Budget Again Skips Making Hard Choices
OPINION: Obama released his [proposed] budget for the coming year. If his past three budgets are any indication, it is unlikely anyone outside of the White House … (Read Full Story)

Why Are Record Numbers Of Young Adults Jobless And Living At Home With Mom And Dad?
It’s so their mommies and daddies can keep changing their diapers, and raise them to be good little soldiers for OWS… (Read Full Story)

Obama’s 2013 Budget: A Monument To Irresponsibility
Financial Ruin: What do you call a budget that boosts spending $227 billion, adds $329 billion to an already huge deficit, and does nothing to fix the entitlement crisis? If you’re President Obama, it’s called “fiscal responsibility.” In the message Obama attached to his 2013 … (Read Full Story)

Dateline: February 13, 2012

Jeff — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:32:32 +0000

Iran presses ahead with attack on dollar

The barter system Iran is developing, now everyday documented in an increasing number of published articles, and the proposal of using currencies other than the U.S. reserve currency, the dollar, you can clearly see how more oil and other commodities’ producing nations will follow. Iran already has a developed oil exchange. Truth be told, it will be an answer to their prayers to cease using the seriously debased U.S. currency. (Read Full Story)

Is The Foreclosure Settlement A Shadow Bailout For Broke California

With a $3.3bn short-term ‘hole’, they (California) were looking for cash-management solutions under every rock and hard place they could find. Today we hear that California joins the Obama bank foreclosure settlement enabling $18bn of bank-funded cash (implicitly via Federal Reserve/Government coffers) can flow to the left coast. (Read Full Story)

The Top 12 Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement
Banks will be required to modify second liens that sit behind firsts “at least” pari passu, which in practice will mean at most pari passu. So this guarantees banks will also focus on borrowers where they do not have second lien exposure, and this also makes the settlement less helpful to struggling homeowners, since borrowers with both second and first liens default at much higher rates than those without second mortgages. (Read Full Story)

Andover voters to decide on silver dollars as pay alternative for town employees
There is another side, and the other side is that the 4 to 5 percent [in purchasing power] that the employee and the town would save is coming from Uncle Sam. And so the IRS is going to take the fall for it, and they’re not going to be happy. (Read Full Story)

JUST ANOTHER SCAM: Why the Foreclosure Deal May Not Be So Hot After All
First of all the foreclosure “sweetener deal” (4 years after the real estate collapse and now offered so conveniently in this election year) is to affect ONLY bank owned mortgages. Banks hold just 10% of all mortgages. The rest are bought up by Fannie and Freddie, magically converted into securities, known as mortgage backed securities, and sold to hedge funds and numerous institutions here and abroad, as variously rated bonds. (Read Full Story)

Life, Liberty & All That Jazz…

FBI says paying for your morning coffee with cash a potential terrorist activity
…urges coffee shop owners to report cash-paying customers to authorities. The cashless society cometh… (Read Full Story)

Obama to submit his budget to Congress on Monday
Obama is pressing for investments in infrastructure while relying on familiar tax increases on the wealthy and corporations to claim progress on the federal deficit in his upcoming budget. Obama’s 2013 budget, to be released Monday, is the official start to an election-year budget battle over taxes and spending as the nation’s debt tops $15 trillion. (Read Full Story)

Obama Student Loan Debt Bubble About to Blow
“Take it from those of us on the front line of economic distress in America: This could very well be the next debt bomb for the U.S. economy,”… (Read Full Story)

Report: Govt Spending Doesn’t Add to Economy
At the center of the debate over efforts by policymakers to “stimulate” the economy with government spending is the issue of fiscal multipliers. Some economists argue that government spending can be a free lunch… (Read Full Story)

Dateline: February 10, 2012

Jeff — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:48:36 +0000

Bernanke pushes foreclosed rentals

Fed chairman makes a renewed push for programs to convert foreclosed homes into rental units as a way to help housing sector. (Read Full Story)

5 stock pros confess their biggest fears

Global money managers talk about their biggest concerns for 2012 and how they are shaping portfolios to protect against what’s lurking around the corner. (Read Full Story)

Trade gap at six-month high
The U.S. trade gap increases by 3.7% in December to $48.8 billion. For the year, the deficit hits $558 billion, 11.6% wider and the largest since 2008. (Read Full Story)

The chickens come home to roost
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is nothing but swindling futurity on a large scale.” –Thomas Jefferson “… (Read Full Story)

Gold: the protector and creator of jobs by Hugo Salinas Price
Some readers may ask themselves, “What has gold to do with protecting jobs? Gold hoarders are certainly not creating jobs, and hoarding more gold will… (Read Full Story)

Life, Liberty & All That Jazz…

Audacity Of Dishonesty Hijacks Truth In Lending
Subprime Scandal: Announcing a massive $26 billion mortgage deal with “abusive” banks, the president blamed everybody for record foreclosures except the party most culpable: government. Speaking Thursday from the White House, Obama scolded “irresponsible” and “reckless” lenders, … (Read Full Story)

The 5 Stages of Collapse: Where Are We Currently?
For those of us who have already gone through all of the emotional stages of reconciling ourselves to the prospect of social and economic upheaval, it might be helpful to have a more precise terminology that goes beyond such emotionally charged phrases. (Read Full Story)

This Is What An Economic Depression Looks Like In The 21st Century
Do you want to see what a 21st century economic depression looks like? Just look at Greece. Once upon a time, the Greek economy was thriving, the Greek government was borrowing money like there was no tomorrow and Greek citizens were thoroughly enjoying the bubble of false prosperity that all that debt created. Those that warned that Greece was headed for a financial collapse were laughed at and were called “doom and gloomers”. Well, nobody is laughing now. (Read Full Story)

10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve

What would happen if the Federal Reserve was shut down permanently? That is a question that CNBC asked recently, but unfortunately most Americans don’t really think about the Fed much. Most Americans are content with believing that the Federal Reserve is just another stuffy government agency that sets our interest rates and that is watching out for the best interests of the American people. But that is not the case at all. (Read Full Story)