Economy

Of the $200+ trillion in derivatives on US banks’ balance sheets, 85% are based on interest rates and for that reason I cannot take any of the Fed’s mumblings about raising interest rates seriously at all. Remember, most if not all, of the bailout money has gone to US banks in order to help them raise capital. So why would the Fed make a move that could potentially destroy these firms’ equity and essentially undoing all of its previous efforts? That being said I still see derivatives as a trillion dollar ticking time bomb with a short fuse. Words: 506

Real estate has definitely not bottomed in the U.S., and probably not anywhere else either. You have to take a long-term view of this. At this point in time I am completely uninterested in speculating in U.S. real estate – and I don’t foresee being interested for at least five years. I reserve the right to change my mind, but I think it’ll be at least five years. Words: 1340

Governments the world over have spent the past year bailing out, backstopping, insuring, and stimulating their financial sectors and economies throwing around trillions of dollars, euros, yen, and pounds like Halloween candy. Officials have assured us there’s little risk to that strategy but I believe that the opposite is true - that if you borrow and spend too much, all you’re going to do is transform a Wall Street debt crisis into a Washington debt crisis. Words: 882

Secretly, the Fed is in a panic to ward off a bond market collapse! They know that, sooner or later, they MUST send the message that they're serious about cutting back on their mad money printing. The danger of course, is that foreign investors will get an entirely different message: that Washington's efforts to fight the most severe recession since the Great Depression are waning. If that happens, you could see turmoil — not just in the bond market, but in every asset class imaginable. Words: 770

America's massive debt and unfunded liabilities make inflation the only viable option for today’s policymakers because when the value of future dollars is diminished, future obligations in those depreciated dollars are diminished. Words: 2808

The Japanese monetary and fiscal anti-deflation reflex in reaction to the crash in the 90´s was very much the same as the recent and currently ongoing global pumping approach. Japan has been running exactly the same "stimulus" as the rest of the world is now employing to fight the downturn. It didn´t work in Japan and I doubt it will work globally. If ever there was an economic illustration of the fact that "stimulus" cannot revive a REAL economy, Japan is that illustration. Words: 861

Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. We can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back. Words: 536

The global climate warming fuss is not principally an environmental issue but, rather, it is a manufactured crisis supported by copious amounts of manipulated science, reinforced by opinion leaders and promulgated by the cheerleading of the mass media. Global warming has become the mother of all politically correct issues. Words: 1551

There is no more time remaining to examine or discuss any nagging questions or doubts concerning the merits of anthropogenic induced climate change. We must reduce our collective carbon footprints now. Electricity sourced from coal must be replaced by anything that doesn’t spew CO2, except, of course, nuclear power. Our next car must be a state of the art plug-in electric version, or at least a hybrid. But isn’t the single largest source of electricity the burning of coal? Hmm, how does buying and driving an electric car help? Regardless, we must get with the program...now! No more questions please! Words: 1346

Global warming is not a crisis created by man wantonly burning fossil fuels to the detriment of nature. Rather, global warming is a methodically fabricated issue cleverly designed and exploited by proponents of global governance under the tutelage of the United Nations. Words: 1839