Over the past several months, many in the mainstream media have hailed the slight improvement in the U.S. real estate market as a “housing recovery”. But the truth is that the small improvement in the numbers was primarily due to a significant number of Americans attempting to squeeze their home purchases in before the huge home buyer tax credit expired at the end of April. Now that there is no more giant tax incentive, real estate professionals all over the United States are fearing the worst. Mortgage defaults and foreclosures are still at record levels, and a giant “second wave” of adjustable rate mortgages is scheduled to reset in 2011 and 2012. In addition, there are numerous indications that the U.S. economy as a whole is going to experience a dramatic downturn shortly, and if that happens it is going to be really bad news for the housing industry. So are we about to see “Housing Crash Part 2”? (Read More...)
The Dominant Force In World Financial Markets In 2010 Is Fear
Extreme volatility is not a sign of health for financial markets. But in 2010 financial markets around the globe are experiencing unprecented volatility. Why? It is because the entire world financial system has been gripped by fear. In today’s crazed environment, it seems like just about anything can set off a major panic. In fact, these days politicians have to be extremely careful about what they say about their national finances, because saying the wrong thing can literally send world markets into violent convulsions. For instance, when a senior Hungarian official said that the Hungarian economy was in a “very grave situation” last week it sent world financial markets into a tailspin. Panic was everywhere and everyone was talking about how Hungary could be the “next Greece”. Of course on Monday Hungarian officials backed away from that comment and tried to reassure world markets that everything was fine, but the damage had been done. (Read More...)
College Students This Is Your Future: High Unemployment And Student Loan Hell
Hundreds of thousands of college students all over the United States have just graduated and are getting ready for their first taste of the real world. Unfortunately for them, the real world is not always easy and it is not always fair. In fact, for large numbers of recent college graduates, the transition to a world of high unemployment, brutal student loan payments and lowered expectations can be extremely sobering. But the truth is that we have taught these young people to have a completely unrealistic view of the future. We have told them to take out gigantic student loans without worrying about how they are going to pay them back, we have told them that if they get good grades and do everything “right” that the system will reward them with secure, fulfilling careers, and we have made high school and college so “soft and cushy” that most of these young Americans find that they don’t have the discipline and the work ethic to make it when they actually do get out into society. (Read More...)
U.S. National Debt 2010
So just how big is the U.S. national debt in 2010? Well, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, on June 1st the U.S. National Debt was $13,050,826,460,886.97. For those not used to seeing such big numbers, that is over 13 trillion dollars. To give you an idea of just how much a trillion dollars is, if you had started spending one million dollars every single day when Christ was born, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. And yet somehow the U.S. government has accumulated a debt of over 13 trillion dollars. This is a debt that we have callously placed on the backs of future generations of Americans. Somehow we have the gall to expect our progeny to pay off the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. What we have done to future generations is beyond sickening. (Read More...)
Strategic Defaults: Is It Morally Right To Decide To Simply Stop Paying Your Mortgage?
In 2010, record numbers of Americans are defaulting on their mortgages. For most of them, it is because they simply cannot afford the mortgage payments any longer. But for a growing number of Americans, the decision to stop paying on a mortgage is not because of financial hardship. Rather, after taking a hard look at the numbers, many Americans are simply deciding to walk away rather than continuing to make monthly payments on a home that has dramatically declined in value. It is called a “strategic default”, and it is a phenomenon that is sweeping the nation. So why have strategic defaults increased so dramatically? Well, in some areas of the United States, homes are only worth about half of what they were going for at the height of the market. So what is the morally right thing to do in that situation? Should someone “honor the contract” that they signed and continue making payments no matter how hard it hurts, or is the morally right thing to stop making payments on the mortgage in order to put your family in a better financial position? (Read More...)
30 Shocking Quotes About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill That Reveal The Soul-Crushing Horror This Disaster Is Causing
It is incredibly hard to put into words the absolute horror that is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now. The millions of gallons of oil that have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico and BP’s efforts to fight the massive leak are turning the Gulf into a lifeless toxic stew of oil and chemicals. The damage caused to wildlife in the Gulf by this spill will be incalculable. Entire species are at risk of being wiped out. Scientists are telling us that the primary dispersant being used by BP ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to bleed. This is by far the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history, and there is no end in sight. It is a worse environmental and economic disaster than all of the hurricanes of the past ten years combined. The great wetlands and beaches along the Gulf of Mexico will never be the same in our lifetimes. The seafood and tourism industries in the Gulf are being completely destroyed. The thousands of jobs and businesses being wiped out by this disaster could potentially throw the entire Gulf coast region into a depression. The damage already caused by this oil spill is beyond measure and yet the government tells us that up to 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil a day continue to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. (Read More...)
Europe’s Coming Summer Of Discontent
The summer of 2010 promises to be the most tumultuous summer in the short history of the European Union. The sovereign debt crisis sweeping the continent threatens to cause economic and political instability on a scale not seen in Europe for decades. The truth is that governments across the eurozone have accumulated gigantic piles of debt that simply are not sustainable. Prior to the implementation of the euro, these European governments often “printed” their way out of messes like this, but now they can’t do that. Now they either have to dramatically cut government expenses or they have to default. But the austerity measures that the IMF and the ECB are pressuring these European governments to adopt are likely to have some very painful side effects. Not only will these austerity measures cause a significant slowdown in economic growth, they are also likely to cause the same kinds of protests, strikes and riots that we saw in Greece to erupt all over Europe. (Read More...)
The U.S. Economic Collapse Top 20 Countdown
So just how bad is the U.S. economy? Well, the truth is that sometimes it is hard to put into words. We have squandered the great wealth left to us by our forefathers, we have almost totally dismantled the world’s greatest manufacturing base, we have shipped millions of good jobs overseas and we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of mankind. We have taken the greatest free enterprise economy that was ever created and have turned it into a gigantic house of cards delicately balanced on a never-ending spiral of paper money and debt. For decades, all of this paper money and debt has enabled us to enjoy the greatest party in the history of the world, but now the bills are coming due and the party is nearly over. (Read More...)