Recent high profile bankruptcies of mainstay American retailers, such as The Sharper Image and Linens ‘n Things, as well as the proposed mergers between Blockbuster/Circuit City and Delta/Northwest, and the admissions from the nation’s leading student lenders that their business models are no longer viable, mark the beginning of a long overdue overhaul […]

Mike Larson writes: If you’ve been following the news, you know the Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates. The benchmark federal funds rate was 5.25% last summer. It’s all the way down to 2.25% now, and chances are the Fed will cut that rate again when it concludes its next policy meeting on April […]

The news that the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) system of setting interest rates is running into trouble was surprising at first glance.  It seems some banks are giving phony LIBOR quotations that don’t reflect the true rates at which they accept deposits. In the perfect financial system, beloved of regulators and academics, this kind […]

In the latest Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – Quarterly Derivatives Report [Q4/07], we learn that outstanding notionals for reporting banks declined by 8 Trillion. Furthermore, we are told that the overall decline was “driven by a 9.2 Trillion reduction in interest rate contracts – mostly swaps with maturities of less than one […]

 The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) report confirms that the UK housing market is in countrywide meltdown mode. House prices are falling at their fastest pace in 30 years (since records began). The net balance between those reporting price rises against price falls deteriorated to a reading of -78.5 in the three months to […]

Inflationists have been crying wolf for the past three plus years despite the fact that the annualized headline CPI, including food and energy, and not seasonally adjusted, for 12M, 6M, and 3M has fluctuated around the 20-year trend of 3%+- (yes, the annualized inflation in the US for the past 20 years is 3.08%). As […]

This Letter is a follow on from my article The Future Actions of The Federal Reserve and US Govt are known   in which, using the work of GB Eggertsson, we showed that the Fed/US Govt is following a plan to stimulate the economy and avoid a deflationary episode. Essentially the plan is to avoid the mistakes […]

Gordon Brown having bottled out of an October 2007 election ahead of an economic slump during 2008 and 2009, is now attempting to prepare the ground works for an 2009-2010 election by giving the Bank of England the green light to print as much money as is necessary to enable the UK banks to restart […]

Few seem to remember that Wall Street is not a non-profit community driven by altruism or any sense of service. They would gladly cheat you out of your entire life savings if their actions were legal, or at least not prosecuted. In the last two to three years, the lies, deception, misdirection, false […]

Let’s turn our attention to something that isn’t often discussed, namely bonds.
I know what some of you are saying already: “But bonds are boring!” Yes, they may well be boring in most instances. But this isn’t one of those times. Actually, the message of the bond market is one of the more exciting and optimistic […]

This week we look at a remarkable and important essay by my friend Dr. Woody Brock who is one of my favorite “Outside the Box thinking” economists. I seriously look forward to Woody’s quarterly insights and devour them as soon as the come in.
I especially urge you to read and re-read the first few paragraphs, […]

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Federal Reserve and the actions it has taken over the past few months. Many media pundits have been bending over backwards to praise the Fed for supposedly restoring stability to the market. This interpretation of the Fed’s actions couldn’t […]

Greenspan did another media tour last week, this time defending his legacy in the Financial Times , Wall Street Journal , and on CNBC Television .  Unfortunately the story from Greenspan was much the same: he reiterated that the financial markets are best left to self-regulate, and that investors around the world (not the Fed) […]

Last week, General Electric one of the finest companies in the world and an American icon, announced a major fall in earnings. Amazingly, the bad news surprised Wall Street, and GE shares fell 13 percent in a single day. Some surprise!
GE is one of the best-diversified and well managed companies on earth, and […]

The ALADDIN’S lamp of Central Banking coming FULL Circle - If one is inclined toward general agreement with the notion that the pinnacle of power in the world is the power to create money, - then one must hastily conclude that; the government-aligned private organizations of central banking cartels, whom fund all of the worlds […]

Following Thursdays UK interest rate cut to 5% from 5.25%, which followed unprecedented action by the Bank of England in providing £15 billion in liquidity to the UK banking system in recent weeks. So far the interbank market has failed to respond to these actions, which saw the 3 Month Libor rate / base rate […]

Economic events in the United States often provide a sneak preview of what’s around the corner for the British economy. Both countries run large external trade deficits, and much like the US, the British economy has been expanding on little else than the availability of easy credit and asset price inflation in the housing market. […]

The Bank of England is expected to cut UK interest rates to 5% at today’s MPC meeting following a slump in UK house prices that saw a 2.5% fall in March (Halifax:SA). Interest rates were last cut in February 08 which was inline with the Market Oracle forecast as of August 07 and […]

The prospect of a US Fed 0% rate becoming a reality has been on my mind since August when the subprime made news hit. In my view, the entire mortgage bond structure would suffer massive losses in a successive of waves, beginning with subprimes, extending to primes, and concluding with commercials. How could housing distress […]

In today’s Financial Times , Greenspan is generously given yet another chance to defend his legacy. Greenspan’s argument that it was not his doing that set off the U.S. housing bubble reminds me of my two perfect children. When they appeared to err, it was never their fault. Greenspan’s main defense lies on […]

UK house prices plunged by 2.5% in March (Halifax seasonally adjusted), the fall was far bigger than estimates and points to an acceleration in the pace of house price falls across the UK.
The credit crisis is continuing to lead to a much tighter mortgage lending environment as highlighted in December’s article. Mortgages continue to vanish […]

Home ownership has long been considered “The AMERICAN DREAM” and with the recent paradigms of the “WEALTH AFFECT” and the “OWNERSHIP SOCIATY”……..(Really fraud and myths I have written about earlier on this site)…..See “Debunked Myths of 2007”.
It is estimated that 8 - 10 Million Americans owe more than their home is worth today, as the […]

 “The crisis from which we are now suffering is also the outcome of a credit expansion. The present crisis is the unavoidable sequel to a boom. Such a crisis necessarily follows every boom generated by the attempt to reduce the ‘natural rate of interest.’” - Analyst XDo you have a troubled friend or relative whose […]

The UK housing market continues to trend lower towards the Market Oracle forecast of negative house price inflation on release of Aprils house price data in May. The Housing market was hit today by further news of withdrawal of more mortgage products that has seen the mortgage products market now shrink by 2/3rds from a […]