BOOM OR BUST?

21.12.07
The global economy seems to be slowing down after the massive expansion which has taken place since 2002. Moreover, the recent rout in the equity and credit markets is yet again prompting several prominent analysts to claim that a catastrophic depression lies somewhere ahead. The doom-mongers are back in fashion again; pointing towards high debt levels, US housing recession and the eventual failure of the monetary system when making their dire economic forecasts.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/saxena/2007/1221.html

Enron, Subprime and the Derivative Disease

16.10.07
That Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is leading efforts to organize an $80 billion or so pool of private capital to finance four times that much in illiquid subprime assets controlled by some of the largest US banks is not a good sign. Looks to us like a prelude to a federal bailout
http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAMain.asp

The “Subprime” Mentality: A Metaphor For the Whole U.S. Financial Market—

15.10.07
First of all, the fallout from subprime lending will be bad enough as it stands. But the real problem is that “subprime” is a metaphor for the whole U.S. financial culture.
http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4790&Itemid=57

Shadow Government Statistics

10.10.07
M3 chart
http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/data

CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?

4.10.07
As I perused the financial news over the past week, I was increasingly puzzled as to why it is that the denizens of Wall Street and Main Street appear to be paying almost no attention to the unfolding crisis.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/casey/2007/1004.html

THE CONTINUING CRISIS

11.9.07
In all our publications, we have recently taken a good, hard look at several facets of the unfolding crisis.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/casey/2007/0910.html

FED: Putting Out Fire with Gasoline

10.9.07
So long as the Feds believe that liquidity is the answer and are prepared to pump more money into the financial system then we can only see further weakening of the Dollar and further strengthening of gold. As investors begin to realize that gold not only offers a safe haven for their wealth it is also offering attractive returns as demonstrated by Fridays close of $700.10/oz.
http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/070910/46792_id.html?.v=1

Financial Storm

29.8.07
Now begins global financial instability. It is impossible to speculate how long today's turmoil will last-but there now exists an uncertainty and lack of confidence that has been unparalleled since the 1930s-and this ignorance and fear is itself a crucial factor. The moment of reckoning for bankers and bosses has arrived. What is very clear is that losses are massive and the entire developed world is now experiencing the worst economic crisis since 1945
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2007-08/29kolko.cfm

TOO BIG TO BE BAILED OUT

7.9.07
Even without the incentives of a government bailout luring more people into default, policy makers simply have no idea as to the scope of the problem.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/schiff/2007/0907.html

Comptroller General warns (again), we're 'bankrupting America'

27.8.07
Except for a short piece in London's Financial Times, Walker's warnings were generally ignored by the American press, by the public and even by the very Congress that hired him and has the power to do something, yet still refuses to heed his warnings.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/if-we-rome-wall-street/story.aspx?guid=%7BE71DF12D%2D6F67%2D4D51%2D8A77%2D1AA17A4C57BC%7D

25 QUOTES ON THE CREDIT CRISIS

28.8.07
The financial market globally is up to its elbows in one of the strangest and most complicated credit crises in history. Events have come in rapid succession with mind-numbing effect. No sooner does the dust settle in one part of the market than it is kicked up in another. Through it all, the reactions on the part of the participants have been the stuff of a good financial thriller. We thought it would be interesting to catalog some of that reaction for you on one web page. So here they are - from the witty and profound to the scary and downright silly - our Top 25 Quotes on the Credit Crisis of '07http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/kosares/2007/0828.html

Top 25 Derivative Bank Nightmares

http://www.rense.com/general77/topfe.htm
Check the derivative book of the 25 banks with the highest derivative book

Fed bends rules to help two big banks

24.8.07
If the Federal Reserve is waiving a fundamental principle in banking regulation, the credit crunch must still be sapping the strength of America's biggest banks.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/24/magazines/fortune/eavis_citigroup.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007082417

THE LIQUIDITY CRISIS OF 2007

24.8.07
Is the current stock market correction a healthy correction, or thestart of a bear market? http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/sutton/2007/0824.html

ANATOMY OF A BOTTOM

22.8.07
Puru Saxena
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/saxena/2007/0822.html

Top Swiss banker attacks US lending standards as 'unbelievable'

21.8.07
Jean-Pierre Roth, president of the Swiss National Bank, said market turmoil was far from over as tremors from the sub-prime debacle continued to rock the world.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/08/20/bcnswiss20.xml

Inflation

15.8.07
The Labor Department's most recent inflation data showed that U.S. food prices rose by 4.2 percent for the 12 months ending in July, but a deeper look at the numbers reveals that the price of milk, eggs and other essentials in the American diet are actually rising by double digits
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18902.html

The Archdruid Report

15.8.07

The carnage began with mortgage companies, not so long ago the darlings of the financial press. Eighty-odd of them have imploded in the last few months as they discovered that if you loan money to people who can’t pay it back – who’d have thought? – they can’t pay it back. Next it was the turn of hedge funds that speculated in mortgage debt, with two Bear Sterns funds leading the rush to insolvency

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

A Bull Market in Fools

16.8.07
The one thing needful at the top of each bubble, the rabble also takes on the role of greatest sucker, too. Piling in as the smart money runs for the exits, the common or garden investor pays top price. He or she is then left holding the "asset" as its price collapses...and by that time, the Lear jets have long since cleared the tarmac...taking the money with them.

http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2007/20070817.html

Is This a Run on the Bank?

14.8.07
What Sentinel Management's Redemption Halt Really Means

http://www.minyanville.com/articles/sentinel-gs-equity-cash-market-money-fund/index/a/13704

Meltdown 'inside' Wall Street's brain

14.8.07
Seven rules for bull-and-bear predators in a 'brutal, manipulative world'

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/seven-rules-keeping-wall-streets/story.aspx?guid=%7BFD6E8E92%2D1066%2D48E1%2DBD24%2D49D6B2362AB9%7D

The $300 Trillion Time Bomb

If Warren Buffett can't figure out derivatives, can anybody?

Gen Re got into derivatives dealing in 1990 and became tied to global financial markets in ways it found difficult to predict. When Buffett bought the company in 1998, he quickly decided he wanted out. At Buffett’s behest, Brandon embarked on a task that lost Berkshire and Gen Re a cool $409 million before taxes. The experience led Buffett to write in his 2002 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders what has become the most memorable line about the instruments: “Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal.”

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2007/03/29/The-300-Trillion-Time-Bomb#page1

Bernanke Panics & Gold Responds

11.8.07
In Globally Contained Liquidity Crunch I pointed out that the Fed was providing temporary loans (as repos) not capital to the markets. While true I missed something. What I missed involves the collateral the Fed is willing to take for those short term loans

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

WHAT WE KNOW

11.8.07
by Roger Conrad

How do you solve a liquidity crisis? The simple answer is to inject more liquidity into the financial system. The hard part is not pouring in too much and thereby setting off a speculative boom in the markets that leads to a greater meltdown later on
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/RConrad/2007/0811.html

Bear Stearns Says Battered Hedge Funds Are Worth Little

Bear Stearns told clients in its two battered hedge funds late yesterday that their investments, worth an estimated $1.5 billion at the end of 2006, are almost entirely gone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/business/18bond.html?ex=1185422400&en=5a30706d0cab857e&ei=5070&emc=eta1

US Begs China to Buy Subprime Mortgages

Mish Note: ECOMOMIC? The HUD could not even manage to spell economic correctly in their News Release.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Who's Holding The Bag?

There is an interesting article in the Financial Times article about Liquidity Threats and who is holding the toxic tranches
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/shedlock/shedlock070507.html

A must read in my opinion

Credit crunch will 'shred investment portfolios to ribbons'

The near collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds has lifted the rock on our 21st century mutant capitalism, exposing the bugs beneath to a rare shock of naked light.When creditors led by Merrill Lynch forced a fire-sale of assets, they inadvertently revealed that up to $2 trillion of debt linked to the crumbling US sub-prime and "Alt A" property market was falsely priced on books
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/07/02/ccview102.xml

PROPAGANDA WITH A CAPITAL 'P'

Anybody who believes that his or her 4% savings account is staying ahead of inflation is ill-informed
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/dollardaze/2007/0703.html

Another Great Depression?

The Fed's Role in the Bear Stearns Hedge Funds Meltdown
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6209

$250 Billion in Subprime Losses?

Is the subprime mortgage market collapsing before our eyes, or did we avoid a disaster as Bear Stearns stepped up to the plate with $3.2 billion to help its ailing funds? As we will see from the data, the problems in the subprime world are not over. The Fat Lady has not sung. But will the problems in this market contaminate the rest of the liquidity-driven markets? Is the party over?
http://www.safehaven.com/article-7870.htm

25.6.07
Axel Merk: Banks fight to postpone the day of reckoning
http://www.safehaven.com/article-7832.htm

June 22, 2007
Puru Saxena: The solitary Bear
Thanks to the ongoing unprecedented money-supply and credit growth (inflation) on a global scale, currencies
Have stopped fulfilling this crucial function: thereby robbing the masses of their hard-earned savings
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/saxena/2007/0622.html

20.6.07
Jes Black: THE PERILS OF MONETIZING US DEBT
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/black/2007/0620.htm