Vigilant Investor Vigilant Investor Surfing the Great Credit Bubble and its unwind. Discussions about how your investment evironment and economy are changing. Don't be a fall guy! Articles
U.S. Government to Cease Publishing Economic Indicators
2008-02-18 15:57:00 In a move reminiscent of the Federal Reserve ceasing its publication of M3 money supply figures in 2006, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that it will discontinue its Economic Indicators services at www.economicindicators.gov effective March 1, 2008. The site has served as a key public portal to the economic indicators used by the ... More About: Economy , Government , Publishing , Crash
Jim Rogers: Price Controls on Interests Rates and Commodities Make it Worse
2008-02-16 14:38:00 This is a nice video of Jim Rogers in unflattering terms describing the current official efforts to fix the price of money and other commodities. As for Bernanke? Hehehe. Share This More About: Economy , Commodities , Currency , Debt , Price
The Upside Down Thinking of Bursting Economic Bubbles
2008-02-15 12:08:00 If you're diagnosis of the economy is entirely wrong, the prescribed solutions may actually serve to make the patient worse off. Here's why. More About: Economy , Housing Bubble , Currency , Gas Prices , Debt
Look Back on Pop Culture Economics TV
2008-02-14 22:52:00 It doesn’t get any more rich than this… Cramer on there being no housing bubble! Goes to show how off base pop culture economic analysis can be. Don’t forget how the media earns its living: Advertising. Throwing a wet blanket on the bonus party on Wall Street is not going to be promoted. ... More About: Economics , Culture , Pop Culture , Back
“Cry Wolf Syndrome” and the Vardy view of the U.S. Economy
2008-02-14 17:30:00 Nick Vardy is a well respected guru by most of Wall Street. He’s posted up a mocking critique of those of us contemplating the worst of what’s transpiring in the U.S. economy at the moment. The issue at hand is the consequence of “cry wolf syndrome”, where decades of warnings about horrid Fed ... More About: Economy , View , Wolf
Unprecedented ?Tsunami? in Munis as AuctionMarket Literally Locks
2008-02-14 00:57:00 That’s how one colleague in who works high up in one of Wall Street’s major muni departments described what’s been going on. Hundreds of auctions ended without a bid. The major Auction facilities (really, they’re underwriters) who are among the biggest on Wall Street are literally sitting on $ billions of muni securities ... More About: Economy , Tsunami , Currency , Debt , Crash
Mortgage Crisis 2007 Recap Video
2008-02-13 17:14:00 In case you think we’re through the woods, this recap from Reuters at the end of last year serves as a reminder of all the dislocations. I’d add also that not only will government intervention nibble at the edges, it’ll continue throwing good money after bad when it should simply allow the markets itself ... More About: Video , Economy , Mortgage , Recap , Crisis
How Serious is the U.S. Financial Situation?
2008-02-12 17:15:00 “?but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires”. – II Timothy 4:3 Glen Beck’s observation on all the hate mail he receives when he would talk about the bad things going on in the economy in 2007 are valid. For better or worse, folks ... More About: Video , Economy , Financial , Currency , Crash
40-Year Economic Honeymoon Ends
2008-02-12 02:27:00 You see, it?s gradually becoming clear that the second half of the 1990s was in many respects just a lucky period for the U.S. economy ? and that our luck has now run out… …Bill Clinton got some credit for all this ? but the big, undeserved beneficiary was Alan Greenspan, who looked like a genius ... More About: Economy , Honeymoon , Economic , Ends , Year
Monoline Insurers and Government Bailouts: Will They Work?
2008-02-10 21:48:00 “How could Ambac, through the magic of its triple-A rating, with equity capital of less than $5bn, insure the debt of the state of California, the world?s sixth-largest economy? How could an investor in California?s municipal bonds be comforted by a company that during a potential liquidity crisis might find the capital markets closed to ... More About: Economy , Government , Finance , Work , Debt
Faber on Global Credit Bubble
2008-02-09 19:25:00 Here’s Dr. Marc Faber interviewed by Barron’s. Faber was well ahead of the curve at predicting the credit bubble’s collapse. Share This More About: Economy , Credit , Global , Bubble
Bird and Fortune on the Credit Crisis
2008-02-08 15:50:00 A classic worth a repost. Share This More About: Video , Economy , Finance , Credit , Fortune
Bank Reserves Collapse; Replenished with Unprecedented Credit
2008-02-07 21:35:00 The last six weeks are unprecedented to the degree banks have shored up their reserves by borrowing. That’s what we can learn from the Fed’s own H.3 Table 2 Report (Dated January 31, 2008) where nonborrowed reserves have actually turned negative for the first time. What you’re looking at in the graph above (click for ... More About: Economy , Collapse , Finance , Credit , Currency
Shiller on Housing: ?Like Great Depression?
2008-02-06 05:51:00 Yale Professor Dr. Robert Shiller was one of our key sources several years ago who helped us be well ahead of the curve on the real extent of the housing bubble. Here he is being interviewed about how dysfunctional the housing situation still remains. Its still the early innings, folks. Think it through! Share This More About: Video , Economy , Finance , Depression , Housing Bubble
Talk of Another Dollar “Death Lunge” on Bloomberg
2008-02-01 00:03:00 Philip Manduca, who co-manages $2 billion as head of investments at ECU Group Plc, says “another death lunge still to come.” His arguments are close enough to give them a listen, especially on the Fed’s additional .50% rate cut and the consequent risks of inflation, currency weakness, and, generally speaking, the impending ... More About: Dollar , Bloomberg , Talk
Monline Insurers Fantasy Ratings: Ackman Letter
2008-01-31 18:11:00 Standard & Poor’s said it cut or may reduce ratings of $534 billion of subprime-mortgage securities and collateralized debt obligations, as home loan defaults rise. The downgrades may extend losses at the world’s banks to more than $265 billion and have a “ripple impact” on the broader financial markets, S&P said. That’s from an article ... More About: Fantasy , Letter , Ratings
Bond Insurers — Downgrade in the Air!
2008-01-30 14:59:00 Wall Street bond rating agencies are poised to downgrade two big bond insurers, Ambac Financial Group and MBIA, even though New York state insurance regulars would like to get a postponement until the state can develop a bailout package, CNBC has learned.Losing a Triple A rating could be devastating for the bond insurers, preventing them ... More About: Bond
Home Dumping Questions at the WSJ
2008-01-30 05:04:00 That’s one heck of a question to tackle. To think one year ago the entire establishment of contemporary finance and news reporting couldn’t have dreamed such questions in their worst nightmares. Today, the Wall Street Journal is handling them as a matter of fact. My how far we’ve come. Unfortunately, there’s much ... More About: Questions , Home
Here Come the Lawsuits on Housing
2008-01-29 19:30:00 The City of Cleveland is not going to take the subprime mess lying down. Cleveland is suing 21 of the nation’s largest banks and financial institutions, accusing them of knowingly plunging the city into a financial crisis by flooding the local housing market with subprime mortgage loans to people who could never repay. City officials hope ... More About: Lawsuits , Housing
New Housing Abysmal with 26% Drop
2008-01-29 16:30:00 A 26% drop from a year earlier? How far we’ve come from those most prominent in contemporary finance — from the Fed on down — telling us there was no housing bubble just 18 months ago! As for all the commentary that nobody saw this coming, that’s flatly wrong. Don’t buy it. A ... More About: Housing , Drop
60 Minutes: House of Cards
2008-01-28 19:29:00 How bad is it for housing? 60 Minutes provides a decent postmortem on the entry into the housing crash… If only they could haven warned people when it mattered –before it collapsed, like we did! The only thing missing is any revelation of where all this easy money came from. That ... More About: House , Cards
Cramer and Paul Discuss Fed Policy Failures
2008-01-23 23:03:00 Here’s a decent clip that shows the debate is changing on the Federal Reserve as both Ron Paul and Jim Cramer discuss the fallacy that is the Fed. Tipping points are critical junctures where one paradigm closes while another opens. Such shifts can be dramatic. As for our video, just five years ago ... More About: Video , Economy , Finance , Currency , Policy
Don?t Forget Housing (as if!)
2008-01-23 21:06:00 Stunning jump in foreclosures Foreclosures and default notices skyrocketed to record peaks in California and the Bay Area in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a report released Tuesday. The information was a fresh reminder that the slumping real estate market is continuing to have a serious impact on homeowners, particularly those with risky subprime ... More About: Global Warming , Economy , Finance , Housing , Crash
Bond Insurers Trouble: Bailout Looms
2008-01-23 16:34:00 No doubt, issues abound. If bond insurers go down as more problems come to light (e.g. commercial real estate and revolving credit / credit cards), the shock waves will be disastrous. Ambac, MBIA Lust for CDO Returns Undercut AAA Success Municipal bond insurers such as MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group Inc. had a good thing ... More About: Economy , Bond , Bailout
Soros and Pimco?s Gross: U.S. In Trouble
2008-01-23 15:56:00 Soros Sees End of Dollar as World’s Reserve Currency Billionaire investor George Soros said the fallout from the U.S. subprime crisis will bring about the end of the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. “The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom, it’s basically the ... More About: Economy , Housing Bubble , Debt , Bubble
ECB Firm; Another Plummet at Open: Nasdaq down 2.5%
2008-01-23 15:40:00 Foreign markets digested the Fed’s .75% rate drop, and were mixed. Most notably, the European Central Bank’s Jean- Claude Trichet made it clear the ECB will not follow the fed with a rate cut of its own, stating inflation was still its primary concern. Otherwise, stocks have kicked off the day rocky. ... More About: Economy , Inflation , Open , Currency , Debt
Cramer Calls out Ambac, MBIA Ratings ?Fiction?
2008-01-22 22:42:00 Cramer was blindsided like every other popular analyst, but to his credit he’s now calling BS when he sees it. Host Question: How come AMBAC still has a AAA rating? Cramer: Because the truth is too painful. You can hear his comments and rants about the rampant “fiction” on Wall Street in this CNBC round table. ... More About: Global Warming , Economy , Fiction , Housing Bubble , Currency
Yikes! Its a Bear! History Provides Insight.
2008-01-22 16:47:00 NEW YORK ? Wall Street was expected to plunge at the opening of trading Tuesday, extending its huge losses from last week and taking more cues from heavy selling that has spread throughout the world. Indicators showed the Dow Jones industrial average was set to fall by more than 500 points when trading begins.Fears of ... More About: Economy , History , Finance , Housing Bubble , Insight
Bond Insurers Struggling to Avoid Cascading Problems
2008-01-17 13:58:00 Ambac and MBIA are in the news about their ratings. Not great: Blow for Ambac as Moody’s reviews for possible cut Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday placed Ambac Financial Inc, which insures more than $500 billion in bonds, on review for a possible ratings cut, an event that could trigger ... More About: Economy , Bond , Problems , Debt , Crash
Funny Fed Reserve T-Shirts: Worth a Look
More articles from this author:2008-01-16 19:32:00 buy unique gifts at Zazzle Share This More About: Economy , Funny , Finance , Housing Bubble , Shirts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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