The Depression-Proof Newsletter – Update

The market action from Friday January 29th has shown me one very serious probability. The Depression of the Western World may be coming soon. For those of you that doubt this fact, please continue to read.

We have all read the articles the Economic Analyst puts out each day and I am sure you have noticed these non-mainstream stories show us the true picture of America’s plight. The fact is, America will not be the only nation that “meet its maker”, as the U.K., the E.U. and eventually all nations will succumb to the Monopoly Money Managers.

How do I know the gloomy events will come? First of all, the Market’s response from last Friday should give us all a clue. For example, when a 5.7% GDP number comes out and the market rallies then shortly after plummets, tells us something very serious. People are scared. When I say people, I really mean traders and the so-called “smart money”. These managers of money know darn well that the numbers being put out by our Economic bureaucrats are candy coated to paint a rosy picture. When the numbers are looked at more closely, there’s nothing but air and stimulus monies.

The Western market as we know it may have been changed forever, due to the recent talks of regulation that are dire to a capitalist system. Besides the fact that tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, our entire financial system would screech to halt.

So what should you do? I am personally cutting back on any trading positions of size (don’t forget your 401k is an open trade), as it’s very possible we wake up one day and find the markets down hundreds’ of points. Last Friday’s action should show you the likelihood of a major market drop on the horizon. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

My advice is to take this gift of lower physical metals prices and buy more physical. If you have doubts about were Gold and the rest are heading, please notice that the metal has held the $1070-1080 levels. There are rumors of a large buyer that is keeping prices afloat (China/India?). If prices continue to stay here, look for “Short sellers” to become nervous and buy back their short positions. Gold NEVER has NO value, unlike paper. Till next time. Trader D.

MARKETS SET TO CRASH?
Markets have become “pretty nervous again,” Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann said during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 30. He cited sovereign risk and commercial real estate as areas of concern for investors..
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Swiss Warn UBS bank Could Collapse

Switzerland's justice minister warned in an interview on Sunday that top bank UBS could collapse if sensitive talks with the United States over a high-profile tax fraud investigation fall through.
"The actions of UBS in the United States are very problematic. Not just because they are punishable but also because they threaten all of the bank's activities," Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told Le Matin Dimanche newspaper.

"The Swiss economy and the job market would suffer on a major scale if UBS fails as a result of its licence being revoked in the United States," she said.

Switzerland and the United States have negotiated an agreement under which UBS would hand over information on some 4,500 account holders to US tax police.

But a Swiss court ruling earlier this month put the deal in doubt.

Many in Switzerland, where banking secrecy is a source of pride and a key part of the economy, have accused the government of failing to protect UBS.

"We have nothing to blame ourselves for. I don't think anyone could prove that we acted badly," Widmer-Schlumpf said in the interview.
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More Job Loss: Allstate to Lay Off Thousands

Howard Simpson counts himself among those on the chopping block.

An Allstate agent in central Ohio from 1967 until last month, Simpson said he was asked to either sell his agency by Jan. 1 or accept a $130,000 termination payment. Allstate was unhappy, Simpson said, because the number of policies in his portfolio fell 1.5 percent, or about 30 accounts.

"I had negative growth, but the company's was down more than that," said Simpson, 68.

In 2008, Allstate saw a drop in policies on its books — down 1.8 percent for autos and 4.2 percent for homeowners — as well as a loyalty score shy of company goals.

When an Allstate manager issued what Simpson saw as an ultimatum, his gallows humor kicked in: "I'm assuming Tom Wilson will be leaving the same day I'm leaving?" he said of the chief executive of Northbrook-based Allstate.

The National Association of Professional Allstate Agents expects Simpson's lament to become increasingly common in coming years as more agents are let go.

"We believe Allstate is planning to eliminate between 3,200 and 3,300 agents by 2013," said Jim Fish, the association's executive director.
MOre Here

Major Depression: The Middle Class Collapse

This chart is downright troubling. Who would have thought that Michigan and California would lead the way in 2009 with underemployment rates over 21 percent? Michigan has had issues for many years and their economy pulls in a GDP of $380 billion. But California being the biggest economic state in our country with a GDP of $1.8 trillion should make you pause before you think we are somehow in recovery mode. And from the looks of it, California with their historical housing bubble looks to have years of financial trouble to work through. These issues are large and we haven’t even begun examining their state budget issues that are projected to come in at $21 billion.
Having a job is the cornerstone of our economy and also our vibrant middle class. This has been the case for multiple decades and actually has been part of our identity since the disastrous years of the Great Depression. Having a job is a pact with our country and Wall Street has taken this for granted in the last thirty years. Slowly we moved from an economy that valued work to a casino like economy that funneled money into Wall Street and whatever demand came after the spending of the corporatocracy was given as crumbs to the public.
This notion of “jobless recovery” is such an oxymoron. How can we have a recovery while losing 8 million jobs? Just because bank bonuses are back to record breaking levels does not mean a recovery is in place. Statistically we can massage the numbers however we like. And what else would you expect? We pumped $14 trillion in bailouts, backstops, and gifts to bankers so of course something was bound to happen. Even a mountain can move with enough force. Yet where are the jobs?
We should examine job gains after previous recessions to see the erosion of our middle class base:

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People are focusing on places like Greece, no doubt a big problem but California has an economy that is 13 percent of U.S. GDP! Michigan has a bigger GDP than Greece ($357 billion) yet so much attention is being given to this issue. Our nation’s number one GDP state has an underemployment rate of 21 percent and is on the precipice of financial insolvency. Not only California, but other states. In fact, many have been borrowing for their unemployment insurance funds trying to keep those long-term unemployed from going into despair:
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5 More Banks Shut Down On Friday
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FED GAVE Banks Access to 23.7 TRILLION DOLLARS NOT $700 Billion!

Morgan Stanley looking into legal action against ZeroHedge

At the beginning of the week, financial research firm and industry online publication The Davian Letter posted a story that compared a Morgan Stanley research note written by Jim Caron to a story published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge. The Davian story laid out an argument that Zero Hedge was taking data charts from Morgan Stanley research and printing them as its own. Phrases like “serial plagiarism” and “stealing of intellectual property” were thrown around. At first, it wasn’t clear if this was nothing more than a blogger war between two sites, which make their mark publishing unique market views, trying to clock the other out.

Then on Tuesday, Davian published another example that got the attention of the bank’s research team leader, who sent the post to his legal experts to determine if there was any real wrongdoing. Caron told the Greenwich Time he’d didn’t read ZeroHedge before this and had no further comment.

Today, we learned Morgan Stanley isn’t going the take the alleged research lift by online publication Zero Hedge lightly.

In a letter seen by Greenwich Time, Mitchell Bompey, executive director of legal and compliance for Morgan Stanley, writes “Morgan Stanley greatly appreciates your post by Dexter Morgan on Tuesday, January 26, 2010, exposing the plagiarism by Zero Hedge of recent Morgan Stanley research. We are reviewing that site now for possible legal action. Without your article, this abuse of our intellectual property may have gone unnoticed.”

A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley would not comment on the type of legal action the investment bank is thinking of taking against Zero Hedge. While we did hear a lengthy explanation from Zero Hedge that almost sidestepped the issues at hand, those connected with the Web site would not comment on the record, so unfortunately we can’t give you their side of the story. But we have no doubt they will publish one, on their own site, after this news comes out.
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Brace Yourself: A Gold Shortage Coming

Brace yourself for the impending gold shortage. Gold shortage? Yup. With the launch of a flurry of ETF’s devoted to the barbaric relic recently, total ETF holdings have soared well past 60 million ounces worth $65 billion, more than total world production in 2009. The grand Daddy of them all, the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), now has a staggering $42.7 billion of the yellow metal, making it the second largest ETF by market capitalization, and the fifth largest gold owner in the world.
When gold suffered a hair raising $150, 12% pull back from the all time high in December, I was deluged by traders asking if this was the peak, if it was the final blow off top, and if gold is finished as an asset class. My answers were no, never, and not on your life.
A tidal wave of fiat paper currencies is now flooding the world financial system at an increasingly alarming rate. Obama has not suddenly become a paragon of fiscal restraint. Bernanke has not morphed into a tightwad. When I pull a dollar bill out of my wallet, it’s as limp as ever.
In 2008, South Africa suffered its steepest decline in gold production since 1901, falling 14%, to a mere 232 tons. It now ranks only third in global production of the yellow metal, after China and the US. Severe electricity rationing, a shortage of skilled workers, and more stringent mine safety regulations have been blamed. Choked off credit has frozen the development of new capital intensive deep mines, as it has for everybody else. Rising production costs have driven the global breakeven cost of new gold production up to $500 an ounce.
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Platinum: The Overlooked Investment Metal and Currency
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Unemployment Despair: Turning To Family For Help

WARRENTON, Ore. — After Jean Ley lost her job as a mental health counselor in June 2008, she quickly realized how limited her options were. She had little savings. Unemployment benefits were not going to be enough to pay her bills. She was at risk of losing her home here on the Oregon coast.
As a last resort, Ms. Ley, 62, turned to her family. Her older brothers conferred with her son, Matt, and agreed that one of them would help pay her bills if needed.

But the assistance proved more than temporary. A year and half later, her son’s regular payments covering her mortgage and occasional emergencies, like a car repair or arthritis medication, have proven to be her bulwark from economic catastrophe.

“If my family weren’t able to help me out at this point, I wouldn’t have a home,” she said. “And I would be struggling.”

As joblessness persists, credit cards max out and the government’s safety net has grown thin, many Americans have turned to a patchwork quilt of family members and friends to stave off eviction, keep their electricity running or cover an unexpected medical bill. It is an underground banking system, complete with lenders and borrowers.
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Europe Weighs Possibility of Debt Default in Greece
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Creating A Trillion From Thin Air

Note: Circulate this article and The Coming Economic Depression Blog to your friends, relatives and co-workers today!

The Federal Reserve reported a $45 billion profit for 2009, making it the most profitable financial institution in the nation. Many news outlets put a positive spin on this report, saying it was great news for the economy and the financial sector. Are they right about that? Or could the full story of what happened represent a direct threat to the value of your savings and your retirement investments? Let’s take a short look at the story behind the headlines, and the personal implications for you and your family.
As we all know, the large banks were in deep trouble in 2008 and 2009. The subprime mortgages were the trigger, but the problems rapidly spread into other investments. Markets totaling trillions of dollars were in danger of collapsing because of a lack of buyers.
Enter the Federal Reserve. This next part of the story is where 99% of the country usually stops reading. Because the concepts and vocabulary get a little obscure. That’s what Wall Street is counting on – you not finishing this short article. Because that’s the perfect way to steal by the trillions – do it in plain sight, but in such a manner that the people are blind to what you’re doing. Keep reading, and let’s shine a light on what has been done, and why you should be personally concerned.
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California: Out of Cash By April, Again

SACRAMENTO — State Controller John Chiang issued a stern warning Friday about California's cash reserves, telling legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger they must act on nearly $9 billion in budget cuts the governor is seeking by March — or the state will run out of cash to pay its bills.

Without making those cuts — which Chiang says will pump $1.3 billion into the state's checking account — California would be broke by April 1, no fooling.

The state wouldn't climb back to what's considered a safe level of cash on hand, $2.5 billion, until later that month, when tax revenues are expected to begin flowing into Sacramento.
"While our current cash condition is marginally better than it was one year ago," Chiang wrote to leaders, "it is still precarious."
Even with the budget cuts, the state's cash reserve would still be far below that cushion in March and April.

To that end, Chiang is calling for an additional $2 billion in cash-flow "solutions." Looking at previous cash crunches, that could mean some payments, like income tax refunds, would be delayed for a few weeks to keep the cushion intact.

"Call it overdraft insurance," said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state Finance Department. He stressed that officials are still huddling over specific solutions.

If the budget gridlock lingers all the way to July, then IOUs could come back into play.

And because many budget cuts..
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Subprime Crisis: Canadian Housing Market Set To Crash

NOTE: CANADA was voted the #2 Subprime REAL ESTATE bubble in the WORLD after Australia. Vancouver voted #1 LINK: HERE

For years Garth Turner has been telling anyone who will listen that Canada's long-running housing market boom is about to crash. The politician-turned-financial commentator has been wrong so far, much to the delight of realtors, bankers and homebuilders. But, like the boy who cried wolf, Turner's day may have come.

How bad could things get?

"If you bought in ‘08 you better be damn sure that your income will be 40% higher in order to qualify for the same mortgage at renewal time," says Turner. "I just can't see economy of Canada percolating enough over the next three years in order for people to reap those huge salary increases."

Even the Bank of Canada seems to agree things are not looking particularly rosy. The central bank's latest Financial System Review indicates that almost 6% of Canadian households are vulnerable to rising interest rates because servicing their debts eats up more than 40% of their gross income. A 300-point rise in interest rates would increase that number to 8.5%. And yet mortgage credit is rising at more than 7% a year and the household debt-to-income ratio is at an all-time high. Something has to give when interest rates undoubtedly start rising this year and it just might be the housing market.

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Krugman: America Is In Serious Trouble

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The nature of America’s troubles is easy to state. We’re in the aftermath of a severe financial crisis, which has led to mass job destruction. The only thing that’s keeping us from sliding into a second Great Depression is deficit spending. And right now we need more of that deficit spending because millions of American lives are being blighted by high unemployment, and the government should be doing everything it can to bring unemployment down.

In the long run, however, even the U.S. government has to pay its way. And the long-run budget outlook was dire even before the recent surge in the deficit, mainly because of inexorably rising health care costs. Looking ahead, we’re going to have to find a way to run smaller, not larger, deficits.

How can this apparent conflict between short-run needs and long-run responsibilities be resolved? Intellectually, it’s not hard at all. We should combine actions that create jobs now with other actions that will reduce deficits later. And economic officials in the Obama administration understand that logic: for the past year they have been very clear that their vision involves combining fiscal stimulus to help the economy now with health care reform to help the budget later.

The sad truth, however, is that our political system doesn’t seem capable of doing what’s necessary.

On jobs, it’s now clear that the Obama stimulus wasn’t nearly big enough. No need now to resolve the question of whether the administration should or could have sought a bigger package early last year. Either way, the point is that the boost from the stimulus will start to fade out in around six months, yet we’re still facing years of mass unemployment. The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office say that the average unemployment rate next year will be only slightly lower than the current, disastrous, 10 percent.
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Foreclosure Plague: Where it's spreading
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Lenders Pursue Mortgage Payoffs Long After Homeowners Default

When John King stopped making payments on his home in Coral Gables, Florida, two years ago, he assumed the foreclosure ended his mortgage contract, he said. Last month, a Miami-Dade County court gave collectors permission to pursue him for $44,000 stemming from the default.

King is among a rising number of borrowers who are learning that they can be on the hook for years after losing their homes. Amid a crisis that stripped $6.4 trillion, or 28 percent, from the value of U.S. residential real estate since the 2006 peak, lenders are exercising their rights to pursue unpaid mortgage balances. To get their money, they can seize wages, tap bank accounts and put liens on other assets held by debtors.

“The big dogs get a bailout, and the little man gets no mercy,” said King, 39, referring to the U.S. government’s rescue of banks and other financial institutions.

While there are no statistics on the number of deficiency judgments approved by courts, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. tracks the amount banks collect after defaulted loans were written off.

These mortgage recoveries rose 48 percent to a record $1.01 billion in the first nine months of last year compared with the year-earlier period, according to the Washington-based regulator. Recoveries on defaulted home-equity loans almost doubled to $392 million, the FDIC data shows.
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American Economic Standpoint: Its Endgame

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Right before the stock market melts down, the real estate bubble will go kabloowie, Fannie and Freddy will go up in a puff of smoke, and the domestic banking system will come to a screeching halt. The Fed will mindlessly continue to keep the presses running for as long as they can, (after all, that's all they know how to do). The erosion of the buying power of dollars will accelerate exponentially. From an American economic standpoint, we will have arrived at "end game".

At the time I was astounded that Dick Cheney had been permitted to mastermind a series of events that would allow Haliburton (a company that he was a major stock holder in and former CEO of) through the illegal invasion of Iraq, the opportunity to steal sixty billion dollars (at the time a mind blowing amount) from the American tax payers. Then, much to my horror, Henry Paulson stepped up and blatantly fleeced the country out of another seven-hundred billion under the threat of martial law. Even more recently, Timothy Geithner has joined this heinous rogues gallery by posing as the Treasury Secretary, (based on his actions he surely can't be a "real" Treasury secretary, can he?) and stealing one-point-two trillion more. Now, Obama is plotting to administer the "greatest theft in the history of the universe". The collective value of middle class America's IRAs and 401Ks is in the tens of trillions.
Very Long Read Here..

Fed Starting to Unwind Loose Monetary Policy, Could Trigger Secondary Crash
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The Collapse Of America

Banks Swindle The Public And They Keep Putting Money In

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- It's the financial equivalent of a dysfunctional relationship.

For more than a year, consumers have howled about the litany of sins committed by the country's biggest lenders -- including accepting billions in bailout dollars, cutting credit lines and, in some instances, paying outsized bonuses.
But for all their grumbling, many Americans just can't seem to quit the megabanks that they have complained so loudly about.

In fact, the number of deposits controlled by some of the nation's largest financial institutions remain near their highest levels ever, based on the latest data from the industry.
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State Of Pennsylvania Warned Is Facing Bankruptcy
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Buy Your NON GENETICALLY MODIFIED Survival Seeds
HERE

Financial Service Sector Set To Implode

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Gord Nixon, chief executive of Royal Bank of Canada, is warning that the effort by governments around the world to hammer out a set of standards for the financial services sector is starting to implode.

The regulators and politicians who are supposed to be in charge have been following their own interests in recent weeks instead of working toward the common goal of preventing a repeat of the financial crisis, Mr. Nixon said in an interview with the Financial Post.

Critics argue that in the interests of a healthy financial system, there needs to be a set of consistent rules, because without that countries will engage in “regulatory arbitrage,” relaxing their rules in a bid to attract business.

Mr. Nixon said the U.S. and Europe should stop trying to punish financial institutions and instead try to fix their own policies, because that was what caused the crisis.
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U.S. Households Struggle to Afford Food: Survey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly one in five U.S. households ran out of money to buy enough food at least once during 2009, said an antihunger group on Tuesday, urging more federal action to help Americans get enough to eat.
"There are no hunger-free areas of America," said Jim Weill of the Food Research and Action Center. Weill said he hoped President Barack Obama would exempt public nutrition programs from a proposed three-year freeze on domestic spending.

Obama has a goal to end childhood hunger by 2015. He backed a $1 billion a year increase in school lunch and other child nutrition programs a year ago.

Nationwide polling found 18.2 percent of households reported "food hardship" -- lacking money to buy enough food -- in 2009, according to the group. That is higher than the government's "food insecurity" rating of 14.6 percent of households, or 49 million people, for 2008.

Households with children had a "food hardship" rate of 24.1 percent for 2009 compared with 14.9 percent among households without children. Twenty states had rates of 20 percent or higher. Seven Southern states led the list.

The figures were based on responses to the question, "Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy the food that you or your family needed?" The question is similar to one asked by the Census Bureau in collecting data for the annual food-insecurity report.
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State of the (Cardboard) Box
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Huge Tax Hikes Coming

Even if Congress does nothing, tax hikes will hit hard a year from now, says Pete du Pont, Chairman of the National Center for Policy Analysis and a former Governor of Delaware.

The estate tax, which fell to zero this year, will return, the top personal income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent, the dividend tax rate will go from 15 to 39.6 percent and the capital gains tax rate will rise from 15 to 20 percent.

“If the House health care bill had passed, all three of these rates would have risen to 45 percent,” Du Pont writes in The Wall Street Journal.

Moreover, many of last year's tax deductions have disappeared due to the failure of Congress to extend them into this year, including deductions for state and local sales taxes, college tuition and fees, and the 50 percent small business write-off for capital purchases.

“Add in the biggest government deficits and spending increases in half a century, the protectionism of free trade downsizing through the ‘buy American’ requirements, China import restrictions, and the administration limitations of Colombia, South Korea, and Panama free trade agreements, and we have a very different, and not very prosperous, America ahead of us,” Du Pont observes.

Du Pont suspects that worries about government spending, markets and tax increases may well fuel a replay of the 1994 voter revolt.

“That led to a Democratic presidency and a Republican Congress, which together were better for the American people than the full-scale liberalism we see in the current administration,” Du Pont says.
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Unemployment Benefit Extensions Are A Blatant Lie
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Massive Depression In America: Poverty Levels Near 30%

A shocking report from Brookings exposes just how massive America’s poverty problem is. While substantial reductions in poverty were made during the 1990’s, America’s poor have been rocked by the dual economic downturns since 2000.

The result is that poverty grew at twice the rate of U.S. population growth from 2000 – 2008, and now encompasses 39.1 million Americans.



If one were to expand the definition of poverty to merely ‘poor’ (yet still very poor), then a eye-popping 30% of the nation lives no higher than twice the poverty base line.

Brookings: In 2008, 91.6 million people—more than 30 percent of the nation’s population—fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. More individuals lived in families with incomes between 100 and 200 percent of poverty line (52.5 million) than below the poverty line (39.1 million) in 2008. Between 2000 and 2008, large suburbs saw the fastest growing low-income populations across community types and the greatest uptick in the share of the population living under 200 percent of poverty.

Here’s where it gets even more ridiculous — If you break down the data to individual areas, then there’s at least ten U.S. cities with poverty rates of around 30%. Moreover, Brookings latest research highlights how poverty has been getting worse especially fast in the suburbs, thus the U.S. is faced with the challenges of suburban poverty like never before:
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New Home Sales Fell 7.6 Percent in December

Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly fell 7.6 percent last month, capping the industry's weakest year on record.

WASHINGTON -- Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly fell 7.6 percent last month, capping the industry's weakest year on record.

The Commerce Department says December sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000 from an upwardly revised November pace of 370,000. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast a pace of 370,000 for December.

The results were the weakest since March and indicated demand remains sluggish despite newly expanded tax incentives to spur sales.

Only 374,000 homes were sold last year, down 23 percent from a year earlier and the weakest year on records dating back to 1963.

The median sales price of $221,300 was down nearly 4 percent from $229,600 a year earlier, but up about 5 percent from November's median of $210,300.
LINK HERE

28% of Orlando-area housing units vacant
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Depression-Proof Commentary

Janus is Alive and Well this January

Tonight, as I flipped through the 300 channels of “education” it dawned on me that all news presenters are merely talking heads reading via teleprompter. I know this revelation is no surprise to many of you, but I am being almost “forced” to accept a homogenized, masterly massaged, sterile script. Where are the philosophically dangerous ideas of days gone by? The blue boxes speak to us with the same whimsical chant of theater.

I sat back and listened with the discernment of a deacon, fact from fiction. I am being lied to and so might you. Minute-by-minute, a product is being heralded or a lawyer asking you to falsify your neck pain. I have been handheld into a world of confusion.

Today, the president said that he would immediately freeze government spending to curb our deficit. As Bloomberg News and the rest spewed the story across the global, I felt hopeful for half a second or so. To start, only 1/6th of the overall spending by government is able to be touched. The black holes of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Defense, and Homeland Security are all off the table. Those that will be led to slaughter are Education, National Parks, Nutrition, Farm subsidies and Air traffic control (do you see the problem?!) [(Link Here)

The net result of these actions should cut about $250 billion out of $9 trillion or 3% over a 10-year period. I found it ironic when minutes later I discovered an article on ABC news outlining a proposed Jobs bill that states “The $75 billion [jobs bill] increase would erase one-third of the $250 billion in 10-year savings that would come from the partial domestic spending freeze being proposed by Obama. “ [LINK HERE]. So already, the numbers are presented as fiction.

Truth be known the president’s spending freeze is already less than what will be promised in Wednesday’s address. The Roman god “Janus” is alive and well, as our leaders speak out of both sides of their mouths. I denounce the lies and the agendas…Trader D.

Chinese Takeover Of America

The recent Supreme Court decision will allow foreign corporations and governments to control elections, candidates and policy, now that the court struck down restrictions on corporate campaign contributions.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, lifted restrictions on corporate campaign contributions, citing freedom of speech issues as the Constitutional grounds for the decision. Now, corporations can contribute to any candidate, with any amount of money, to ‘buy’ the candidate who supports their interest.

Republican legislators, Fox News’ commentators, and corporate lackeys hailed the decision as too long in coming, and lauded the court’s allowance for big business the freedom to speak as a private citizen, a right it bestowed on corporations as a very generous gift; or was it a payoff.

The American people will pay for the immature decision the majority of Justices made. By allowing an institution the same rights as an individual citizen, those rights will lead to a foreign government taking power here in America through the election process.

Forget that the banking industry will pay to have regulatory commissions disbanded, or that Monsanto will buy enough candidates to abolish environmental regulations, or that drug manufacturers will purchase the candidates who can undo regulatory enforcement power for safe drugs. The real danger is Chinese, Saudi, or Russian companies buying candidates to influence foreign policy decisions.
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Largest US Real Estate Deal In History Defaulted

As underwater homeowners around the country despair over whether to keep paying their mortgages or just walk away, investors in the largest residential real estate deal in U.S. history have just walked away from 11,232 properties in one fell swoop.

On Monday a group led by Tishman Speyer Properties gave up the 56-building, 11,232-unit Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town apartment complex in Manhattan, turning the properties over to its creditors after defaulting on some $4.4 billion in debt. The group decided to "transfer control and operation of the property...to the lenders," it told the Wall Street Journal. The $5.4 billion acquisition in 2006 was the single biggest residential property purchase in U.S. history.

It's now worth an estimated $1.8 billion, putting the properties' owners "underwater."
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13,000 More Laid Off As Businesses Reduce Phone Lines

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Verizon Communications Inc., coping with subscriber losses at its fixed-line phone business, plans to cut about 13,000 jobs at the division this year after posting fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates.
The cuts will follow reductions of a similar size last year, Chief Financial Officer John Killian said on a conference call today. This year’s eliminations equal to 11 percent of the staff at the unit, which had about 117,000 workers at year-end.
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The Equality Act: Totalitarian Britain Just Around the Corner

By Nick Griffin — Imagine a Britain where public displays of the Union Jack and the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, St. David, St. Patrick and St. Pirran of Cornwall are illegal because militant Muslims say they find them offensive.

Imagine a Britain where Christian churches are sued by atheist cranks who say they feel intimidated by signs carrying Biblical quotes.

Imagine a Britain where Cub and Scout groups are forced to hire militant homosexuals who believe in abolishing the age of consent.

Imagine a Britain where even to publish extracts from the Koran as a warning as to the real nature of Islam is banned on account of breaching the human rights of Muslims by ‘offending’ them.

You are imagining a Britain that is just months away! For all these things and many other shocking attacks on our freedom, traditions, common decency and Christianity will become shocking reality when the Equality Bill becomes law.

The Bill, which passed through the House of Commons with virtually no opposition from the increasingly absurdly named Conservative Party, is now being pushed through the House of Lords as quickly as possible. Labour ministers are desperate to get the Bill on the Statute Book before the general election, and the signs are that they will succeed.

10,000 Laid Off Now At Sams Club

Sam’s Club laid off 10,000 workers nationally, including hundreds in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, during early-morning store meetings Sunday.

The move follows recent store closings around the country.

Inquiries at local Sam’s Clubs on Sunday were referred to company headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Calls to the corporate public relations office there were met with recorded messages promising to return calls during “regular business hours.”

Raynetta Dennis, who worked at an Addison store, said there was no advance notice of the layoffs of workers who did product demos in stores and outside marketing people who called on business to solicit club memberships.

"They laid off everybody on the demo teams and outside marketing," Dennis said. "That's 18 people in that store, and there are 28 local Sam’s Clubs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It's supposed to be nationwide."

She said the workers were told Crossmark would eventually take over in-store demos and that laid-off workers could apply to Crossmark for jobs that will pay $7.25 an hour.

After more than 10 years with Sam’s, Dennis said she was making $16 an hour until Sunday morning.
LINK HERE

Losing the Internet as We Know It
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3 Simple Things To Gain Greater Financial Peace

OUR GOVERNMENT CAN NOT SPEND OUR COUNTRY INTO TRLLIONS OF DOLLARS OF DEBT WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE.

I am working on my next set of forecasts and seminars but before they are out, I want everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) to consider 3 simple things to gain greater financial peace of mind:

Diversify away from paper assets. As I have written before, paper assets have “counter-party risk”. Any “paper”investment that you have (such as stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, cash accounts, etc.) have counter-party risk. In other words, that investment’s value is tied to someone else’s promise or performance. A stock can go worthless if that company ceases to perform well (or just ceases to perform!). Bonds can become worthless if the borrower can’t or won’t pay. What should you consider? Add some gold or silver physical bullion to your asset portfolio. Gold and silver bullion are among the very few investments that do not have counter-party risk. They have their own, unique intrinsic value and that has been true for thousands of years. It will continue to be true for years to come.

Accumulate essentials. As odd as this may sound for some of you, consider starting a pantry or otherwise consider stocking up on essentials such as non-perishable foods, extra water, etc. No…I am not asking you to become a survivalist or a hermit. I consider this is to be just another form of diversification. The world is too precarious right now and is quite vulnerable to disruptions. Severe inflation is not far off. Potential problems can come from a variety of expected and unexpected venues. What do you think will have greater value a few years from now…a dollar or a can of soup?

Re-focus your portfolio with emphasis on “human need”. You should consider stocks and ETFs of companies and industries that provide goods and services that are actually NEEDED. Think about what people will continue to buy no matter how good or bad the economy is. I think that part of your long-term picture should include commodities.
Trillion-dollar tinkering will continue in Washington. Ongoing massive blunders and financial difficulties will need to be faced by all of us. Take steps now. You will be glad you did.
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Creditors Hounding You? Sue Them, More Profitable

Unlike his neighbors' homes, Craig Cunningham's house in Northeast Dallas looks abandoned. The grass is dried out. The concrete slab under the front door is lopsided and cracked. The green exterior has faded to a toxic-looking shade. Yellow Pages pile up near the front door, and the black mailbox is stuffed full. Maybe the home has been foreclosed on. That wouldn't be a surprise in this economy.

But no, that's not the case. Inside, the 29-year-old Cunningham hunkers his 6-foot-2-inch frame on a dumpy couch. His heavy arms extend from his sides, palms up, so two Chihuahuas, Angel and Chuay, can curl under them. Although it's 10 a.m. on a weekday, he's wearing slippers.

He leans forward to lift some paperwork out of a plastic tub on the coffee table. The phone rings, and he answers with a soft voice. It's just a friend, and soon he hangs up. He's waiting for a particular type of phone call—one from a representative of a debt collection agency or a credit card company, whom he'll try to ensnare like a Venus fly trap. It's not unlikely that Cunningham's next call will be from a bill collector, since he's between jobs—except for being in the Army Reserve—and owes $100,000 in debts.
While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector's call, Cunningham sees them as lucrative opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies, intentionally or not, violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham's favorite pastime is catching them doing so and then suing them. In fact, it's a profitable side job.

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All told, he filed 15 other lawsuits in federal court without the help of a lawyer, earning himself settlements totaling more than $20,000.

"Most people hear about the abuses that debt collectors do, but you just didn't hear about the second part of it, where people sue the collectors," he says.
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IRA & 401k Theft Plotted by US Government

(Now's the time to cash out your retirement for real silver, and gold.)

Silver Stock Report

The State of America is not good. Criminals rule, and the righteous are in prison.

I've warned in the past that the US government is more likely to confiscate your IRA and 401k than your silver or gold. Why? Because that's where the money is!

Personally speaking, I cashed out my own IRA over the last few years, after reading the handwriting on the wall, because the government began discussing confiscating IRA accounts. Well, they are at it again. Read the article in Businessweek, from Jan 8th:

HERE

4th paragraph down reads:

"The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort."

They want to "get" people to invest their 401k's and IRA's into annuities, or likely into bonds, which are in the biggest overvalued bubble the world has ever seen.

They are doing this probably because they will have $2 Trillion in bonds to sell this year, and foreign buying is drying up. They will steal the assets in IRA accounts, and force conversions into bonds, and keep the real investments for themselves, no doubt about it.

If you are unsure about what to do, because of taking the "penalty for early withdrawl" and that "tax hit", consider one of the main features of money.
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America's Impending Master Class Dictatorship
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Who's Closing Stores in 2010?

Ritz Camera
2009 Store closures: 365

Outlook: Almost half the company's stores have shut down following a bankruptcy last year. The company has since been bought by private investors who continue to operate 375 stores as Ritz Camera & Imaging.


See the full list of Who's Closing Stores In 2010?


Waldenbooks/Borders
2009 Store closures: 110 (Q4 2008 to Q3 2009)

Outook: Amazon.com continues to wreak havoc on traditional booksellers. The Borders unit says it will close an estimated 240 stores during the three months ending January 31, for a total of 350 stores over the past 13 months, close to 70 percent of all outlets. Retail analysts at Davidowitz & Associates give Borders Group, plagued with losses three years running, a 50-50 chance of survival.


Blockbuster
2009 store closures: 300

Outlook: Part of a two-year plan to close 960 stores, about 13 percent of Blockbuster's 7,100 locations in the Americas. The company is trying to reformulate with kiosks and on-demand services that focus on hot new releases, but experts say the costs associated with the transformation will be too expensive to pull off without a bankruptcy. Shares have plunged from $10 to under a dollar a share since 2005.
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Housing Sales In December Largest Drop In 40 Years

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of previously occupied homes took the largest monthly drop in more than 40 years last month, sinking more dramatically than expected after lawmakers gave buyers additional time to use a tax credit.

The report reflects a sharp drop in demand after buyers stopped scrambling to qualify for a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time homeowners. It had been due to expire on Nov. 30. But Congress extended the deadline until April 30 and expanded it with a new $6,500 credit for existing homeowners who move.

"It's 'exit stage left' for first-time homebuyers," wrote Guy LeBas, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott.
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Poverty Rate Hits 17.5 Percent in Nashville
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Taxpayers Getting Fleeced Daily By Government

From an extra day's hotel stay so military officials can fit in a round of golf to federal workers who fly business class instead of coach, questionable travel expenditures have remained a persistent problem across the federal government in recent years.

At the State Department, for instance, nearly 80 percent of the more than $300,000 in airfare reviewed at one little-known office in fiscal 2007 and 2008 went to pay for business-class airline tickets, and many of those purchases violated federal travel policy.

One senior manager at the National Science Foundation took or extended taxpayer-funded trips totaling more than $10,000 to facilitate liaisons with women in Paris, Tokyo and Vancouver.
And a former deputy secretary at the Pentagon repaid more than $17,000 after investigators said he extended official travel for personal reasons on more than a dozen trips, a finding the former official said he strongly denies.
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New Depression-Proof Weekly Report 1-24-2010

Wow, what a week we have just seen. Everything from a 500 point weekly drop in the DOW, the Democrats losing a historically democratic senate seat, slashed commodity prices, and even earthquakes around the world. It’s been tough to say anything else but wow, what a week! As far as the markets are concerned I know one thing, market volatility is likely here to stay. If you didn't you open up or your 401k at any point this week, you're a stronger person than me.

I’m certain we all heard the news about the President’s proposed regulation on the big banks to curb proprietary trading. On the surface, that idea may sound like a good one, but if we look deeper we might see the larger implications of such an act. Let me state first and foremost, I am NOT happy with these TARP wasting, greedy shysters we call “bankers”. The problem arises when a government steps into the private arena and forces its demands on a capitalistic marketplace. In fact, I would argue that the U.S. capitalistic market no longer even fits the meaning of the world Capitalism, but has moved into an arena called Corporatism.


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No Recovery This Is a Depression

Accept that we are now in a depression, Stock Markets still grossly overvalued, poverty rates increase across midwest, a lots opportunity to regulate the banks,Goldman Sachs reports record profits and still bonusing employees richly, mainstream America goes on a financial diet, suburbs now home to American poor.
Few professionals are yet willing to admit we have been in a depression for the last year. You have to understand the position that economists and analysts are in. They work for corporations, insurance, Wall Street, banking and government and if they thought we were in a depression and they publicly announced that all chances for advancement would be lost or they would be squeezed out of the firm or simply fired. Under such circumstances can you ever expect that you get the truth? We don’t think so. Furthermore the depression we are enveloped in is far from over. The recession encompassed a drop in real GDP in the midst of a credit crisis. The crisis was the result of over-extended credit, prohibitively low interest rates, massive speculation by banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, and corporations worldwide. It just didn’t happen it was planned that way. We saw that recently in testimony before Congress when CEOs of these financial firms admitted they made a mistake in the process of enriching themselves. The worst sin was the criminal securitization of mortgages and the deliberately criminal mislabeling of their ratings. Then making matters worse those who sold this toxic garbage to their clients such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup were shorting the product that they had just sold to their best clients. What kind of monsters are these people? Unethical doesn’t go far enough. It was criminal. These are the same characters, along with the Fed, and others, who gave us the dotcom boom and collapse and then foisted the real estate boom on our economy. The result has been deflating assets and contracting credit offset by massive lending, money and credit creation by the Fed and monetization, all temporary expedient measures, which in the context of history has led to failure. This has been in process for seven years. This second major abuse of our system in 14 years has presented a terrible dilemma and that is where we are today. Our monetary policy hasn’t worked and won’t work and there has been and presently is little fiscal control in Washington. This is no normal recession; it is a depression.
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Even Sesame Street Understands The Economic Collapse

Goldman Sachs So Corrupt: They Sought Heavy Protection

As Goldman Sachs prepared to announce its fourth quarter earnings and employee compensation levels yesterday, the bank had bomb-sniffing dogs and police barricades on hand at its New York City headquarters, the New York Post reports.

The decision to boost security as its offices was apparently driven by growing fervor over the bank's huge profits and bonuses. Yesterday, the bank announced that it earned $13.4 billion for the year, and set aside $16 billion for employee compensation. Goldman was widely expected to set aside approximately $20 billion for employee pay, but CFO David Viniar suggested yesterday in a call with reporters that the bank wasn't blind to the "pain and suffering in the world" and "wasn't deaf to the calls for restraint."

Viniar's remarks indicate an abrupt change in tone among Goldman Sachs execs. In November, CEO Lloyd Blankfein -- who had previously bragged that the bank was doing "God's work" -- said the following at an industry conference:

I often hear references to higher compensation at Goldman. What people fail to mention is that net income generated per head is a multiple of our peer average. The people of Goldman Sachs are among the most productive in the world."
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Former Secretary Of Homeland Security Profits From Airport Xray

(Snippets)

Since the uncomfortably close attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253 last week, many have focused on why the alleged terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not placed on a watch list that would have prevented him from flying, even though the government had received information that he was a potential extremist. We should focus on a more fundamental question: How can we keep explosive materials off planes?

The writer was secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009 and is co-founder of the Chertoff Group, a security and risk-management firm whose clients include a manufacturer of body-imaging screening machines.
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Michael Chertoff is also the co-author of the US Patriot Act.

Depression Proof's-Market Commentary

I would like everyone that reads this fantastic site to not be overly concerned about the weeks market events. Although, I must say I did feel a few beads of sweat. My recent feelings of worry have subsided. The reason is, I know why Gold, Silver, and Platinum are going to save us. For those of you that don't want to hear the bad news, please view another commentary. The reason is: the president is still in "campaign mode" trying to sell the people of Cleveland, Ohio his " recovery ideas", who did their best to believe him. This country has been set on a collision course and we're all on board. The main mission of the persons' in power is to break "us" up, the middle class. Look at what recently happened to Iceland and Venezuela. Each country was fiscally robust one day, then destitute by evening. There must be some other reason why Hugo Chavez so graciously asked his people to blackout the country for a few days.

My friends, the only real money is metal, and the soon you recognize this fact, the far better off you'll be. Attain some Gold, Silver and Platinum.

What's the maximum I should have in my portfolio? Who cares! But you'd better get some (physical only) and you'd better get it soon! I personally know a few people that are actually attempting to exchange every Federal Reserve Note (us dollar$) they can get there hands on. Good for them. So for those of you that see what I'm saying, you can pull yourself back from the ledge. Take this opportunity to buy metals at lower prices. Trader D.

An Economic Emergency: Nobody Is Listening

How loud do the alarms have to get? There is an economic emergency in the country with millions upon millions of Americans riddled with fear and anxiety as they struggle with long-term joblessness, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and dwindling opportunities for themselves and their children.
The door is being slammed on the American dream and the politicians, including the president and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, seem not just helpless to deal with the crisis, but completely out of touch with the hardships that have fallen on so many.

While the nation was suffering through the worst economy since the Depression, the Democrats wasted a year squabbling like unruly toddlers over health insurance legislation. No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

The public interest? Forget about it.

With the power elite consumed with its incessant, discordant fiddling over health care, the economic plight of ordinary Americans, from the middle class to the very poor, got pathetically short shrift. And there is no evidence, even now, that leaders of either party fully grasp the depth of the crisis, which began long before the official start of the Great Recession in December 2007.
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Fast-food giant McDonald's reports first annual setback in at least 25 years
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20 Million Americans Collected Unemployment: Funds Are Empty

The record 20 million Americans who collected unemployment insurance benefits last year landed on a safety net that was already deeply frayed.
New Interactive: ProPublica Predicts if Your State's Unemployment Insurance Fund Is About to Hit the Skids
A historical compromise has left responsibility for unemployment benefits largely in the hands of states, and they have fulfilled this charge with varying degrees of effectiveness.

In a series last summer with public radio’s Marketplace, we reported that only a handful of states had built up reserves sufficient to weather the Great Recession – and forecast a spate of borrowing by states where reserves ran out.

Half a year later, the direst predictions seem to be coming true: So far 25 states have borrowed more than $25 billion to keep benefits flowing after their trust funds ran dry. In many other states the situation is deteriorating fast.
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38,800 California Jobs Erased
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Unemployment Rose in 43 States Last Month

WASHINGTON — Unemployment rates rose in 43 states last month, including Mississippi, the government said Friday, painting a bleak picture of the job market and illustrating nationwide data released two weeks ago.

The rise in joblessness was a sharp change from November, when 36 states said their unemployment rates fell. Four states — South Carolina, Delaware, Florida and North Carolina — reported record-high jobless rates in December.

New Jersey’s rate, meanwhile, rose to a 33-year high of 10.1 percent while New York’s reached a 26-year high of 9 percent.

Mississippi's rate rose to 10.6 percent, as some 1.1 million workers were jobless in December, an increase of nearly 3 percent from the previous year.

Analysts said the report showed the economy is recovering at too weak a pace to generate consistent job creation.

“A lot of states that had started to add jobs (in November) gave up those gains in December,” said Sophia Koropeckyj, managing director at Moody’s Economy.com.

Texas and Georgia lost more jobs in December than they had gained the previous month, she noted, while Arizona and South Carolina lost nearly as many as they had gained.
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The Secret Bank Bailout
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Doug Casey: Stock Market Set to Crash

Louis: So, what's on your mind this week, Doug? I understand you've had a "guru moment."

Doug: Well, it's nothing but a gut feeling, but I think the stock market is riding for a big fall this year.

Everyone was afraid the world was going to come to an end a year ago, and it almost did. But governments all around the world stepped in and printed up trillions of their various currency units - it's not just the United States. And still, retail price inflation hasn't blossomed. It seems that governments are bent on keeping asset prices up to avert panic. They focus on controlling perception instead of fixing the problem. It stems from an economic version of the theory that all we need to fear is fear itself. As long as we have the right psychology, everything is going to be okay - total nonsense.

L: That old saw: as long as there's confidence, all is well.

Doug: Yes. It's the Wile E. Coyote theory of economics. As long as you never look down after running off a cliff chasing the roadrunner, you can keep treading air. Unfortunately, although the power of positive thinking may help in many ways, it's of zero use if you continue living above your means and making stupid decisions.

L: Insolvency doesn't seem to matter; as long as everyone has confidence that things will keep going, the experts believe they will. But in the real world, you can't remain insolvent for long, even if "you" are the United States as a whole society.

Doug: Exactly. My thinking about the stock market is this: corporations have done as "well" as they have mainly by cutting expenses. Laying people off, that sort of thing. So the bottom lines have not fallen as far as we might expect - but the top line has been hit. Revenues are falling for corporations across the board.

L: And the market has to notice this reality sooner or later.
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Ron Paul: After ‘CIA coup,’ Agency ‘Runs Military’

US House Rep. Ron Paul says the CIA has in effect carried out a "coup" against the US government, and the intelligence agency needs to be "taken out."

Speaking to an audience of like-minded libertarians at a Campaign for Liberty regional conference in Atlanta this past weekend, the Texas Republican said:

There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA.
Paul's comments, made last weekend, were met with a loud round of applause, but they didn't gather attention until bloggers noticed a clip of the event at YouTube.
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No Recovery: Stats Have Been Faked

Author, investor and longtime Wall Street observer James Dale Davidson says our government is lying to us: There is no genuine economic recovery happening.

“I think what we have seen ... is a simulated recovery which has been generated by the government faking it in a lot of different ways," putting out what he calls statistical falsehoods on economic numbers "to make it seem that the economy is stronger than it is,” Davidson told Newsmax.

For example, calculations for the recently released unemployment figures released failed to include the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had undercounted the number of unemployed people in 2009 by 824,000 persons.
Video
— Davidson: Obama White House Is Lying to You
“They’re supposed to be doing a benchmark adjustment ... and if they do, the unemployment rate will shoot up even higher,” Davidson says.

"A lot of the supposed improvements have been faked by the government," Davidson says.

Davidson believes the government secretly used quantitative easing as an excuse to funnel money into U.S. capital markets.

“It’s not a coincidence that the market started to rally in March at the same time they announced they were going to do the quantitative easing,” he observes.

“In my view, it’s all created by the government as a hoax.”

The whole administration is based on one lie after another, he says.
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New Lifestyle Policy In China (Satire)
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BREAKING: Is Fisheries & Oceans Canada BROKE? Actual Document Below

Given to Employees?:
"Due to the uncertainty of funding from Fisheries & Oceans Canada , I am informing you now that our payroll schedule for January 8th, 2010 is going to be put off until January 15th, 2010 at which time we will have recieved our funding for this quarter.
I and the Board of Directors apologize for the delay and short notice but we have just found out also.
Thank you for your time and patience at this critical stage."

Then: On January 14th, 2010 the employees all got a letter saying that now the payroll is being moved to February 19th! No payment for over a month? Not even an IOU?

If the Canadian Government cannot fund Fisheries & Oceans Canada, is it possible the country cannot fund ANYTHING anymore?

DOCUMENT HERE

Help: Sears On The Verge Of Bankruptcy

(snippet)
The emphasis has shifted under Mr. Lampert. Known for ruminating over every expense, he is loath to pour money into Sears's crumbling stores, say people familiar with his thinking. He is far more bullish on Web ventures, with their small capital requirements and vast potential audiences. While e-commerce represents between 5% and 7% of U.S. retail today, many in the industry believe the figure might grow to be as high as 20%.

"If they can do this right, it may save the company," says Maggie Gilliam, president of the retail consulting firm Gilliam & Co. "There is a sea change happening in retail right now and it is not clear what stores are going to look like in 10 years, so why spend money now? It may make sense for some companies, like Wal-Mart, as a defensive posture, but that is not the position Sears is in."

On a recent morning at the flagship Sears in downtown Chicago, the youthful, caffeine-fueled team of e-commerce designers and engineers was abuzz. Among their latest projects: mobile applications that tap into smart-phone global-positioning systems and offer customers merchandise based on their location: Yankees sweat shirts in New York, Dodgers caps in Los Angeles.

To test their phone creations, the engineers descend into the department store with handsets and grab customers in the aisles. To obtain feedback on Web sites, workers take shoppers upstairs to a small laboratory that resembles a recording studio.

Inside, testers sit across a plate-glass window from the subjects and speak to them via microphone while a camera watches their eyes wander the computer screen. A recent quiz gauges shopper reaction to a new application that lets people check out shoes from every angle.
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Bankruptcies Explode as Media Claims Recovery

Personal bankruptcies rose more than 30 percent last year, with more than 1.4 million protection filings. Many middle-class Americans sought relief after losing jobs, seeing their businesses fail or facing foreclosure.

In 2005, Congress overhauled the nation's bankruptcy laws with the intention of limiting the ability of many individuals to get rid of their debt — especially through the use of Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code. But in this faltering economy, the law's impact has been limited.

In fact, far more people are now using Chapter 7 — in which assets are sold to pay off debts and what can't be paid is absolved — instead of Chapter 13. In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing, an individual signs up for a time-limited repayment plan and, in return, gets to keep certain assets. Creditors often get more money in Chapter 13 filings.

In Search Of A Fresh Start

Bankruptcy is never pretty, but it does provide a fresh start for individuals like Linda Frakes, who lives in the Atlanta metro area.
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New Jobless Claims Rise
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The Truth About Unemployment -- And Why It May Get Worse
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Market Update: Golden Hedge Letter Report

The markets have entered an extremely volatile phase since Tuesday’s market open. If you’ve read my “Golden Hedge” newsletter, you would have noticed my trade strategy is to continue belief in physical commodities versus paper equities (general stocks etc). At this point, I am not changing my opinion or strategy and here are a few reasons why:

1) Most of you read the Coming Economic Depression blog almost everyday, so you should know that Main Street (the common people) are not much better off than times before. Sure, unemployment has slowed, but there is still 17% of the US workforce that are “under-employed”, meaning many are working only part-time, although they wish there were available full-time jobs, but cannot find them.

2) The reason why commodities are currently selling off is there is a short term (in my opinion) rally of the US dollar underway. The media tells us the US economy is recovering, while other countries are faltering, i.e. Greece, Spain etc. While the Euro counties may indeed look shaky and may need “bailouts”, the US economy is only one-step away from the cliff as well, as California, New York, Arizona and others have huge deficits. The US economy is currently held together by Fed stimulus monies, and if pulled our economy would begin its descent. Let’s not forget, there is very little internal growth in the US economy. I will continue to have the opinion that the Fed and treasury will NOT end stimulus in the near future.

3) There is a battle going on between the fiat moneychangers and those that understand precious metals are the standard definition of value. Metals are the only “real money” as governments cannot create them out of thin air. Almost every day the London markets sell Gold, the NY markets, sell Gold, while the Asian markets buy Gold prices right back up. Who will win this battle? China has more physical US dollar bills than anyone else on the planet. China has stated numerous times for their desire to own physical gold bullion instead of paper money. China, India and other “smart” Central banks will continue to buy bullion, especially as prices move lower.


Therefore, my friends do not give up hope during the fiat dollar rally, even though it may take weeks to complete. Make this time a buying opportunity for physical precious metals bullion (www.bulliondirect.com), as metals are the standard which to measure value. Do not allow the moneychangers to fool you about what value is real and what value is fiat. There is an old saying “buy when everyone’s selling and sell when everyone’s buying”. Until next time…Trader D.

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U.S. States Are 3 Trillion In The Hole

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Everyone seems to know the current path of federal fiscal policy is a deathtrap over the long term. What’s peculiar is the relative inattention to the balance sheets of state and local governments.

Hidden behind accounting fictions, the politically unspeakable reality is that public employee pension systems are under-funded by more than $2 trillion. Add more than $1 trillion in unfunded health-care benefits for retired public employees, and state governments face protracted structural deficits ranging from challenging to insurmountable.

Unfunded promises are the equivalent of government debt. The burden of promises made by state governments to their employees -- effectively an invisible wealth transfer from future taxpayers to current and prospective public-sector employees -- amounts to about one quarter of U.S. gross domestic product. The strength and durability of the current economic recovery are unknowable; that state and local governments, which employ one in nine workers, will be a drag on that recovery is certain.

Ultimately, mathematically unsustainable trends must reverse. As with New York City in the late 1970s, eventually the federal government may get involved in redefining the services state and local governments provide, the benefits paid to public employees and the burdens on taxpayers. States cannot kick the can down the road ad infinitum.
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Student Education Loans To Be Nationalized

(CNSNews.com) – A bill currently before the Senate would empower the Obama administration to nationalize the student lending industry, eliminating the federally subsidized private loans millions of university students rely on to finance their educations.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act – currently being considered by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee – would eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. FFEL loans are federally subsidized and make up approximately 80 percent of the student lending industry.
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Dubai Back In Crisis Mode As $5 Billion Missing
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Banner Year For Banking Failures With Many More Coming

(snippet)
A Banner Year for Bank Failures
Karen De Coster

While the government spent zillions trying to prop up its swine flu propaganda campaign in order to grab unprecedented new powers by putting the populace under the spell of a doomsday crisis, duplicitous public officials who paint catastrophic landscapes with pink ribbons and teddy bears are obscuring the real calamities. The blighted landscape before us has been glossed over with a swarm of lies and appeasements. What's coming down the pike is a crush of oncoming bank failures.

One notable item appeared recently on Money & Markets, courtesy of Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.: "200 Bank Failures Expected in 2010." Some of the views of Martin Weiss are problematic in many ways, but he has been learning bits and pieces from the Austrian school of economics. For instance, in the span of a few months, he went from being a rabid deflationist to an overt inflationist. Gary North has written about this. Here's Weiss in his latest piece on bank failures:

Washington has so thoroughly botched its supervision of the banking industry that 200 banks are likely to fail this year - easily surpassing last year's 140 bank failures ... inevitably involving the greatest bank losses in history ... and already costing the FDIC ten times more than the great S&L and banking crisis of the 1980s did.

Weiss points to the recent testimony of FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair (he says "Blair," but that's an easy-to-make typo). Make no mistake - Bair is a raging statist and has been selling a pack of lies to the public since her appointment to the FDIC. Her solutions for current financial crises are always centered on the necessity of more federally mandated reforms. If you are an advocate of the free market, don't read the portion of Bair's testimony that attempts to explain, "Why market discipline failed" - it will make you bonkers. On the contrary, she did blast Greenspan for causing the housing bubble and she condemned Washington for enabling Wall Street's shadow banking system. In his article, Weiss has this to say about the magnitude of the current banking meltdown:

Worse than the 1980s:

If you're among those who think today's banking crisis isn't nearly as bad as the great S&L and banking crisis of the 1980s, think again. The average bank failing today is six times larger than it was back then, producing far greater losses. Moreover, each bank failure is costing the FDIC about TEN times more than it did in the 1980s crisis, according to the Meridian Group of Seattle. As a result ...
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Probability of a Debt Crisis Builds Stronger

As the problem of debt refuses to go away and in fact, quietly spreads, we’ve seen another slow development over the course of the last few weeks – problems in Greece appear to be worse than originally expected and credit default swaps are sending warning messages again. The term structure in Greek CDS recently inverted as investors are now increasingly concerned of a default in the next few months. This is something we saw in 2008 before the financial markets nearly collapsed. That time the inversion was in Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch CDS.

As the problems in the banking sector unfolded in late Summer 2008 the sovereign debt of the big three developed nations began to skyrocket before reaching a crescendo in early 2009. What’s alarming with the situation in Greece is the similarities in CDS price action. The recent uptick could be serving as a warning flag of things to come in 201o and 2011 when the problem of debt has potential to rear its ugly head again. Barclays might not have been too far off when they said the probability of a crisis would grow in 2010.
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More California Companies Planning Big Layoffs
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2009 The Biggest Collapse of Trucking Ever. To get Worse?

The American Trucking Associations' notes that in 2009 “the motor carrier industry has potentially endured the most severe drop in volumes ever.”

Lane Kidd, director of the Arkansas Trucking Association, agrees. He said most Arkansas-based trucking companies still operating were “significantly” damaged in 2009. He said they employ fewer people, have lower balance sheets and have incurred a lot of debt.

“There are a few exceptions, like (Fort Smith-based) Arkansas Best, which still has money in the bank.” Kidd said during a Tuesday (Jan. 18) interview.

Kidd has watched the trucking sector for 18 years, and 2009 was “easily” the worst in that time, with carriers suffering through a “slow, grinding squeeze on cash flow.”

The Arkansas association recently began calling about 250 small trucking operations in the state — typically firms with fewer than five trucks — as part of a membership drive. Of the about 170 calls made so far, 41% were no longer in business.

“Either the phone lines were disconnected or they tell us they’ve just shut it down,” Kidd explained, adding that the Arkansas experience is probably no more or less severe than what is happening around the country.
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Is The Economy Crashing Because Of Intent or Mistake?

The government wants Americans to believe the greatest economic collapse in history was the result of ineptness and mistakes yet still have confidence in their financial institutions.

Should American bankers be let off the hook because they self-declare, before an investigational panel, that the failure of their newly invented risk swaps and other highly leveraged investment schemes was simply due to "mistakes"? Not malfeasance – just every-day mistakes? Bankers just fell asleep at the helm at a critical juncture in American history. Is that what we are being led to believe?

Oh well, it’s just 18 million American homes that now lay empty in the wake of unprecedented foreclosures, and the bankers have collected obscene bonuses for reckless lending of their depositors’ money. It’s like the captain and crew of a ship saying, not to worry, twenty-percent of the passengers were lost overboard, but this was due to unavoidable mistakes, and then being rewarded with bonuses when they reach port.
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Is inflation inevitable? Or is it planned? Will the American public ever imagine the value of their money has long been manipulated just as the price of coffee, bananas, gasoline and gold have been engineered in an unholy alliance between government and bankers and corporate enterprise? Will the American public ever realize their government is working against them, plunder their wealth, in a growing fascist alliance with American corporations? The enemy is not the underpants airplane bomber as we are falsely being led to believe. The enemy is not a towelhead in Afghanistan. The enemy is not China. As Pogo once said, "we have met the enemy, and he is us."
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Global food prices are rising again with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index hitting 168 points in November, the fourth consecutive month of increase and the highest since September 2008.
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