18 June 2011

"I Think It's Called Laughing As You Sink"

The two humorists, Clark & Dawe, use a game show type question and answer format to discuss why Europe is so in trouble. One of the funniest comments concerns why they think the US Economy is so much stronger than Europe's "because the US is owned by China".

Weekend Roundup - June 18, 2011











Everything we're doing now was planned before 9/11

17 June 2011

Peter Schiff's take on Chancellor Merkel of Germany caving in to the demands of socializing losses while privatizing gains in the Greek mess.

I'm with Schiff on this one. Let the bond holders get wiped out if needs be. It is outrageous that German taxpayers will be coming to the aid of the banks and hedge funds which took on the risk. All Merkel's cave in will do is to increase Moral Hazard in the investing banks and hedge funds.

Schiff also explains why he believes QE3, QE4, QE5, and so on are slam dunks as the Fed invents a new way to print money to buy Treasuries, i.e., the Fed will simply no longer call it "Quantitative Easing" with a set amount of money to be printed. Instead, as Schiff points out, the Fed will target interest rates in the USA and will do so by printing whatever amount of money is needed to keep them low. That amount will not be trumpeted up front in the media. Instead, it will be printing presses rolling 24/7, some days faster than others, depending on interest rates. Schiff points out that both he and Bill Gross of Pimco believe this is how the Fed will continue to pump money into Wall Street without calling it "Quantitative Easing".





Stocks with the highest yielding dividends as of June 16, 2011


15 June 2011

Video From Wednesday's (June 15, 2011) Riots In Greece

The first video (NBC News With Brian Williams) is a brief look by Tom Costello explaining why interest rates on Greek bonds are now 18% and why a default could reverberate as dominoes such as Ireland, Spain, and Portugal fall next. There is also a bit of footage of the street riots in this report.

The next four videos are all clips showing in more detail what the riots look like from street level and from balconies overlooking the battleground.









JEREMY GRANTHAM: We're Headed For A Disaster Of Biblical Proportions




America for Sale


Squatter Nation

CNN Money embedded the following video in an article they headlined as Squatter Nation: 5 years with no mortgage payment.

The article's first few pargraphs will make you want to read the entire piece and watch the video.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Charles and Jill Segal have not made a mortgage payment in nearly five years -- but they continue to live in their five-bedroom West Palm Beach, Fla. home.

Lynn, from St. Petersburg, Fla., has been living without paying for three years.

In Thousand Oaks, Calif., an actor has missed 30 payments, and still, he has not lost his home.

They're not alone.

Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least a year, and nearly one-third have gone more than two years.

These cases can go on and on. Nationwide, it takes an average of 565 days to foreclose on borrowers in default from their first missed payments to the final auction. In New York, the average is 800 days and in Florida, where the "robo-signing" issue is particularly combative, it's 807.

If they want to fight evictions hard, borrowers can remain in their homes even longer while their cases are being worked through.

(Click here to read the remainder of the article "Squatter Nation: 5 years with no mortgage payment)







Dr. Housing Bubble: The Southern California housing spring that never was. Median price for a Southern California home falls by 8 percent year-over-year. Sales collapse by 17 percent pointing to future problems.

Housing Continues To Crash And Could Cost Too Big To Fail Banks More Billions



Aaron Task of the Daily Ticker interviews Dan Alpert, Managing Partner of Westwood Capital, who says Bank of America may have to post another $27 Billion in losses due to continued Housing losses.

Alpert points out that this number could be understated as the Top 4 banks in America are sitting on $1.1 Trillion of real estate paper which no one knows the real value of.

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