If you make your living by building or selling new homes in the United States, you might want to consider taking up a different career for a while. New homes sales in the United States hit yet another new all-time record low in the month of February, and there are a whole lot of reasons why new home sales are going to stay extremely low for an extended period of time. The massive wave of foreclosures that we have seen has produced a giant glut of unsold homes in the marketplace, mortgage lenders are making it really hard to get approved for home loans, unemployment is still rampant and the global economy looks like it may soon plunge into another major recession. None of those things is good news for the new home construction industry. The truth is that we were supposed to have seen new home sales already bounce back by now. If you look at the historical numbers, new home sales in the U.S. always increased significantly after the end of every recession since World War 2. But that did not happen this time. Instead, new home sales have just continued to decline. This is absolutely unprecedented, and economists are puzzled. So what is going to happen if the U.S. economy suffers another major downturn? (Read More...)
How Is The Central Economic Planning That The Federal Reserve Does Different From The Central Economic Planning That Communist China Does?
Most Americans believe that we still live in a capitalist system and that free markets primarily determine the growth and development of our economy. But is that really the case? No, sadly it is not. The truth is that the U.S. Federal Reserve does a tremendous amount of central economic planning. So what makes the central economic planning that the Federal Reserve does different from the central economic planning that communist China does? Yes, in China it is the government that does the central planning and in the United States it is a private central bank that does the central planning, but other than that are there any huge differences? And if our economy is centrally planned, then how can we continue to claim that we still have a free market capitalist system? (Read More...)
Rich vs Poor: 14 Funny Statistics And 14 Not So Funny Statistics About This “Economic Recovery”
Today there are two very different Americas. In one America, the stock market is soaring, huge bonuses are taken for granted, the good times are rolling and people are spending money as if they will be able to “live the dream” for the rest of their lives. In the other America, the one where most of the rest of us live, unemployment is rampant, a million families were kicked out of their homes last year and hordes of American families are drowning in debt. The gap between the rich and the poor is bigger today than it ever has been before. In fact, this article is not so much about “rich vs poor” as it is about “the rich vs the rest of us”. Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke keep touting an “economic recovery”, but the truth is that the only ones that seem to be benefiting from this recovery are those at the very top of the economic food chain. (Read More...)
Shaken: 10 Economic Disasters Which Threaten To Rip World Financial Markets To Shreds
2011 has already been the most memorable year in ages and we haven’t even reached April yet. Revolutions have swept the Middle East, an unprecedented earthquake and tsunami have hit Japan, civil war has erupted in Libya, the price of oil has been soaring and the entire globe is teetering on the brink of economic collapse. It seems like almost everything that can be shaken is being shaken. Unfortunately, it does not appear that things are going to settle down any time soon. The Japanese economy has been dealt a critical blow, the European sovereign debt crisis could flare up again at any moment and the U.S. economy could potentially plunge into another recession by the end of the year. The global economy and world financial markets were really struggling to recover even when things were relatively stable. If all of this global instability gets even worse it could literally rip world financial markets apart. (Read More...)
The G-7 Forex Intervention Is A Perfect Example Of How Manipulated The Global Currency Market Really Is
What do governments and central banks do when they don’t like what is happening in the financial markets? They directly intervene and they manipulate the financial markets of course. On Friday, the central banks of the G-7 acted in concert to drive down the value of the surging yen. So why did they do this? Well, the fear was that a rising yen would hurt Japanese exports at a time when the economy of Japan needs all of the help that it can get. So, as central banks have been doing with increasing frequency, they directly intervened in the Forex market in order to bring about the result that they desired. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. The truth is that foreign governments, central banks and large financial institutions are constantly manipulating the Forex, precious metals and stock markets all over the globe. You see, in today’s global economy the “stakes are so high” that the free market cannot be trusted. (Read More...)
Debt Problem: Who In The World Is Going To Buy The Billions Of Dollars Of Debt The U.S. Government Is Constantly Pumping Out Now?
Is the U.S. government on the verge of a massive debt problem? For years, the U.S. government has been able to borrow all the money that it has wanted to at extremely low interest rates. But now many of the lending sources that the U.S. government has been depending on are drying up. Even before this recent crisis in Japan, a number of big players were moving away from U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. Federal Reserve was having to step in to pick up the slack. But now this debt crunch is about to get a whole lot worse. For years, many had feared that it would be China that would start dumping U.S. government debt, but now it turns out that Japan is going to be the real problem. Right now, Japan is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt. Japan currently holds about $882 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds and they are likely going to have to liquidate much of that in order to fund the rebuilding of their nation. So needless to say they won’t be accumulating any more U.S. government debt. But the U.S. government still needs to borrow a trillion and a half dollars from someone every single year. So where in the world are they going to get it? (Read More...)
Global Financial Markets Plunge As The World Watches Japan Descend Into A Nuclear Nightmare
Global financial markets are in turmoil as the situation in Japan continues to deteriorate. Stock markets are plunging all over the world as investors flock to investments that are considered to be safer. The 9.0 earthquake and the unprecedented tsunami in Japan would have been more than enough to spook investors and unleash chaos on world financial markets, but now the unfolding nightmare at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility is really starting to cause panic. Right now there is a mass exodus out of the city of Tokyo. But not everyone can leave the city. There are over 30 million people living in and around Tokyo. So where in the world could you possibly put 30 million refugees? Sadly, the truth is that millions of Japanese are going to stay in Tokyo no matter how high the radiation gets. Let us hope that Japanese authorities can get the situation at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility under control, but the fact that they have resorted to dropping water from helicopters and shooting water cannons at these nuclear reactors is not comforting. (Read More...)
27 Signs That The Nuclear Crisis In Japan Is Much Worse Than Either The Mainstream Media Or The Japanese Government Have Been Telling Us
How much of a threat is the nuclear crisis in Japan? That question is on the minds of millions of people around the globe tonight. Unfortunately, the Japanese government and the mainstream media have both been doing their best to downplay this crisis. Even though there have been massive explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, authorities in Japan have still been very stingy with information and they keep insisting that the situation is under control. But the situation is not under control. In fact, it just seems to get worse with each passing day. Radiation levels are now incredibly high at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex and the radiation cloud is starting to spread. Radiation levels in Tokyo are already 10 times above normal levels, and there are reports in the international media that some people have begun to flee the city. It is imperative that the Japanese government tell the truth about what is going on because this could potentially affect the health of millions of people. There are over 12 million people in the city of Tokyo alone. If this nuclear crisis continues to get worse it could potentially end up killing more Japanese than the tsunami just did. (Read More...)