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03.18.10- Forward or Crash
03.17.10- The Off-Shored Economy and The Ruins of Detroit
Detroit’s population has declined by half. A quarter of the city - 35 square miles - is desolate with only a few houses still standing on largely abandoned streets. If the local government can get the money from Washington, urban planners are going to shrink the city and establish rural areas or green zones where neighborhoods used to be. Read More 03.16.10- Bewitched
Traders did however and began buying up the European currencies as the Euro, Swiss Franc, and the British Pound were all higher today after getting whacked yesterday. Seems like the Yo-Yo model is still intact. Tomorrow- who knows? Read More 03.15.10- Lehman Brothers Scandal Rocks the Fed
After a year-long investigation, court-appointed bank examiner Anton Valukas has produced a deadly 2,200 page report which details the activities that led to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The report is a keg of dynamite. The question now is whether anyone in government has the nerve to light the fuse. Valukas provides powerful evidence that Lehman executives were involved in "balance sheet manipulation” by implementing an arcane accounting procedure called "Repo 105” which masked the bank's true financial condition from investors and regulators. Read More 03.13.10- Finally – A Bill To Get The US Out Of NAFTA
"Free" trade has all but destroyed our most important and productive jobs sectors: manufacturing, agriculture and industrial. Not to mention stomping on our sovereignty. On February 15, 2010, I wrote a column titled, Congress refuses to bring home millions of jobs.[1] For all the talk about unemployment and no jobs, why won’t Congress get us out of the major, unconstitutional trade treaties that have killed MILLIONS of good paying jobs and bring them home? Read More 03.12.10- Distress Signals on Crisis Watch
03.11.10- Deciphering the VIX Index and the Rally in Overconfidence
Our little big bull market celebrated its one-year anniversary yesterday, albeit in tentative style. The Dow managed to eke out an 11-point gain, while the broader S&P 500 fared only slightly better. Investors, it appears, are awaiting the next catalyst to keep the momentum going. But are they running out of excuses to buy? Read More 03.10.10- Entropy - Why the World as We Know It Is Dying
In the simplest of terms, every closed system will ultimately degrade toward a state of maximum entropy. Read More 03.09.10- Foreign versions of our coming crisis
Regrettably, these days it seems that ferreting out the right investment decisions is sort of all macro, all the time. The top-down economic overview is far more important, I think, than the bottom-up fundamental view of any company or stock. Important pieces to that macro jigsaw puzzle are Greece and the United Kingdom, as the U.S. is headed for a variation of the funding crisis, though how severe ours will be remains to be seen. Without a money-printing press -- because it uses the euro, not a currency of its own -- Greece is forced to consider austerity measures to deal with its debt woes. The U.K., on the other hand, is not as bad off as Greece, and it does have a press. Read More03.08.10- Why the Stock Market Is a Horrible Wealth Protection Strategy
If you're looking for the internals of the market, try breadth. That is, if you want to judge how intrinsically strong a rally is, look at how broad it is. Is it just concentrated to a few of the big stocks (banks and basic material, for example). Or are all stocks marching up in lock stop on higher earnings and higher valuations. Is the equity premium visible? Read More 03.06.10- The Core Rate of Unemployment is Horse Crap
The official unemployment rate LEAVES OUT those folks that are discouraged and have ceased looking for work. It also leaves out those that are "under-employed"; those that no longer have full-time jobs but have settled for part-time work. In other words, the official unemployment rate... leaves out...A LOT OF UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE! Read More 04.05.10- A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
03.04.10- Economic Downturn hits Lenders and Borrowers Alike
Residential real estate won't hit bottom until 2013 and who knows how long it will bump along the bottom. At the end of the year we have a whole new generation of sub prime and ALT-A mortgages coming due for reset. In addition there are the pick and pay loans that are in trouble, and 52% of problems lie, if you can believe it, in prime loans. Residential real estate countrywide is off 32% with a number of areas off 50% or more. In the next two years that national figure will show losses of 45% to 50%, and the former 30 hot city markets will be off 50% to 70%. We predicted this in November of 2004. All the savings of America for three generations of Americans will be lost, and these same Americans will be saddled with horrendous amounts of debt spawned by our Wall Street controlled Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Read More 03.03.10- Latest Bill Gross minus the Bull
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There may be no better example to express our upcoming reality than the fact that the Bank of England simultaneously 1) begins to roll down quantitative easing measures (by lowering or even halting its government bond purchases), and 2) warns the British population that living standards are about to take a major hit. In the US, the Federal Reserve is about to quit buying up mortgage-backed securities (all $1.25 trillion of which were steeped in insanity, if you ask me, just watch what happens next), but it hasn't issued a similar austerity warning. It’s probably just less politically palatable in America to say these things; and that's the only difference. 
In the 20th century, Detroit, Michigan, symbolized American industrial might. Today it symbolizes the offshored economy. 
Today was another case of "Buy Europe" as traders reacted to further rumblings out of Brussels that the EU finance ministers were finagling a way around the original Euro treaty of 1991 which supposedly prevents bailouts of countries that screw up their own fiscal house. The idea, best that I can understand it, is that the member countries would pool some funds and provide direct loans to Greece. Germany apparently did not like the idea.
Geithner and Bernanke's Possibly Criminal Roles...
(Editor's Note: Ron Paul has already signed on to this bill. - JSB) 
To be sure, almost without debate, all the financial world has turned to crisis mode. One can safely describe the norm to be crisis proliferation. This theme will clearly continue for the full year in progress. The signs are everywhere. The evidence is compelling. The criticism of remedy is replete with denials. The USGovt officials grow more desperate with each passing week. The Dubai and Greek debt woes seemed to have opened Pandora's Box. Review a scattering of distress signals, sit back and tell yourself that all is under control. It is only if you live in a Fantasy Land. Since September 2008, the fantasy has blossomed in full bloom. The list of distress signals is certain to grow, not reduce. Never in my lifetime have so many loud signals simultaneously been flashing. Forgive me if a few dozen other distress signals were overlooked or omitted. 
Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! 
The concept of entropy is one of the most useful terms for understanding just about everything. While it has its origins in natural law - thermodynamics, specifically - the concept holds true pretty much across all closed systems.
Greece and the United Kingdom are suffering a dire funding problem that is headed for US shores.
Here in the States everyone is keen to see the non-farm payrolls report. It comes out on Friday. Anecdotal evidence (what people say) suggests that the employment situation here is still pretty bad. But government statistics can say pretty much whatever you want them to say.
Today the federal government released its unemployment report for February 2010. The official unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%. Some economists welcomed this as a sign of a stabilizing economy. Perhaps someone should tell these economists that the official unemployment rate is misleading. It is a sign of horse crap. Why?
We are not going to go into the lurid details regarding residential and commercial real estate, but we are going to give you some highlights. We began telling subscribers to sell real estate in June of 2005, long before anyone else. We picked the top just as we did in September 1988 at the top.
I'll save you from Bill Gross social chatter in "Don't Care", his March outlook. He isn't good at it anyways. If you want to read that part, you can click 
