(snippet)But that looks more like bravado than real self-confidence. So it looks like we’ll see how durable the common currency project is. And in the meantime, that ought to mean more U.S. dollar and gold strength. In fact, with so many governments in so many places printing so much money, it shouldn’t surprise you to [...]

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – In what is looming as another public relations predicament for Goldman Sachs, the banking giant admitted today that it made “a substantial financial bet against the Gulf of Mexico” one day before the sinking of an oil rig in that body of water. The new revelations came to light [...]

(snippet) Public pressure to withdraw monetary and fiscal stimulus will work and stimulus will be reduced quicker than many anticipate – beginning sometime in early 2010. The Fed has already said it will stop buying mortgages in March and the Obama Administration is now focused on deficit reduction as evidenced by the paltry jobs bill [...]

“We’ve lost almost $11 trillion of household wealth in the last 17 or 18 months,” lamented Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat, on last Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” urging Congress to proceed with speedy deliberations on a finance reform bill. Eleven trillion dollars! That’s over three-quarters of our current gross domestic product. Where did [...]

Karl Schafer says he has tried for hundreds of jobs since he was laid off from a truck factory more than two years ago. Still waiting to get hired, the 52-year-old Ohio man has suffered the indignity of applying for food stamps and asking his elderly mother for help. Weary of her own job search, [...]

WILLIAMSON– A Carterville mom says she was denied medical care for her children because the state isn’t paying its bills.As the Illinois budget crisis drags on, it’s impacting more and more people.Now, some doctors in southern Illinois are limiting services for patients employed by the state or is asking those patients to pay up front.It [...]

(snippet) Make no mistake, we are seeing the early stages of what will written in history books as America’s Second Great Depression, just as I predicted in America’s Financial Apocalypse (2006).   Who are you going to trust? The media and their government hacks who have been wrong over and over, or someone who has been right about [...]

Arlington, Va.—It’s called policing for profit and it’s happening all across America. Download Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture Police and prosecutors’ offices seize private property—often without ever charging the owners with a crime, much less convicting them of one—then keep or sell what they’ve taken and use the profits to fund their budgets.  And [...]

49 out of 50 U.S. states are still showing less economic activity than a year ago, based on February 2010 coincident economic indicators from the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia. The chart below is organized from top to bottom, from the most growth in economic activity to the largest declines in economic activity. States like West Virginia [...]

Note: Currently  9 States facing bankruptcy are: California, Florida, Wisconsin, Oregon, Rhode Island, Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey and Michigan. Amidst growing pessimism about the financial condition of U.S. cities and states, investors are increasingly buying financial instruments that essentially allow them to short sell – or bet against – cities and states, says a Wall Street [...]