(HigginsBlog) – There is an unusually high amount of chatter on Wall Street surrounding the possibility of another major financial collapse in the making. Read the rest of this entry »

Feb 11(Bloomberg) China should seek guarantees that its $682 billion holdings of U.S. government debt won’t be eroded by “reckless policies,” said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the central bank. Read the rest of this entry »

Eastern Europe is about to blow. If it does, it could take much of the EU with it. It’s an emergency situation but there are no easy solutions. The IMF doesn’t have the resources for a bailout of this size and the recession is spreading faster than relief efforts can be organized. Finance ministers and central bankers are running in circles trying to put out one fire after another. Its only a matter of time before they are overtaken by events. If one country is allowed to default, the dominoes could begin to tumble through the whole region. This could trigger dramatic changes in the political landscape. The rise of fascism is no longer out of the question. Read the rest of this entry »

In America’s earliest days, there were barn-raising parties in which neighbors helped each other build up their farms. Today, in some churches, there are debt liquidation revivals in which parishioners chip in to free each other from growing credit card debts that are driving American families to bankruptcy and desperation. IN DEBT WE TRUST is the latest film from Danny Schechter, “The News Dissector,” director of the internationally distributed and award-winning WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), an expose of the media’s role in the Iraq War. The Emmy-winning former ABC News and CNN producer’s new hard-hitting documentary investigates why so many Americans are being strangled by debt.

Turning a corner in the labyrinthine corridors of the Davos nerve-centre, I ran smack into Chinese premier Wen Jiabao – followed by a regiment of retainers and senior offices in full regalia. Read the rest of this entry »

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks plunged the most since the crash of 1987, hammered by the biggest drop in retail sales in three years and growing doubt that plans to bail out banks will keep the economic slump from deepening. Read the rest of this entry »

The market is heavily manipulated. The driving force behind the meltdown is speculative trade. The system of  “private regulation” serves the interests of the speculators.

While most individual investors loose when the market falls, the institutional speculator makes money when there is a financial collapse.

In fact, triggering market collapse can be a very profitable undertaking. Read the rest of this entry »

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index below 1,000 for the first time since 2003, on speculation banks and real-estate companies are running short of money as the credit crisis worsens.

Bank of America Corp. tumbled 26 percent after cutting its dividend in half and saying it plans to sell $10 billion in common stock to brace for a recession. Morgan Stanley, KeyCorp and JPMorgan Chase & Co. slid more than 10 percent as investors shrugged off signs the Federal Reserve will reduce interest rates. General Growth Properties Inc., a mall owner, plunged 42 percent on concern it won’t be able to repay debt. Read the rest of this entry »

Here it is, the dawning of the selloff that will finally put us at levels where … we will sell off again.

For two years the credit markets have been submerged under central bank happy talk and a sense that the worries were about inflation. You can see why in the outlines of the institutions that are failing now.

The problem is the Europeans got stuck fighting the inflationary war that ended in July. Rates are ridiculously high in Europe vs. the crunching of debt that is happening and will continue to happen. Read the rest of this entry »

WHAT: A pre-planned collapse of the US (and global) financial and economic systems.

WHO: The same characters who perpetrated the original 911.

WHERE: New York City & DC, of course. Plus a sideshow in Washington state.

WHEN: The days surrounding September 11, naturally.

HOW: Instead of painted drones, missiles with wings & big fins, and fake airplanes, they used the much more stealthy short seller. Read the rest of this entry »

The financial system is blowing up. Don’t listen to the experts; just look at the numbers. Last week, according to Reuters, “U.S. banks borrowed a record amount from the Federal Reserve nearly $188 billion a day on average, showing the central bank went to extremes to keep the banking system afloat amid the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.” The Fed opened the various “auction facilities” to create the appearance that insolvent banks were thriving businesses, but they are not. They’re dead; their liabilities exceed their assets. Now the Fed is desperate because the hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the banks vaults have bankrupt the entire system and the Fed’s balance sheet is ballooning by the day. The market for MBS will not bounce back in the foreseeable future and the banks are unable to roll-over their short term debt. Game over. The Federal Reserve itself is in danger. So, it’s on to Plan B; which is to dump all the toxic sludge on the taxpayer before he realizes that the whole system is cratering and his life is about to change forever. It’s called the Paulson Plan, a $700 billion boondoggle which has already been disparaged by every economist of merit in the country. Read the rest of this entry »

At the time of this writing, the U.S. House and Senate are poised to pass a $700 billion bailout to Wall Street. At the behest of President George W. Bush, the U.S. taxpayers are going to be on the hook for what can only be referred to as the biggest fraud in U.S. history. Read the rest of this entry »

26/09/08 “Day Publishing” — – Even leading Republicans in Congress, including presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, recoiled from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson’s proposal to take absolute power over $700 billion to be borrowed by the federal government and used to purchase every sort of bad debt without ever having to answer for it – not to the courts, not to regulatory agencies, and only occasionally and incidentally to Congress itself.

The bad-debt bailout would be the biggest government patronage program in history and would amount to declaring martial law over the U.S. financial system and economy. Read the rest of this entry »

Afshin Rattansi in Tehran talks to Max Keiser in Paris about the end of Wall Street, dollars and toilet paper – and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs no longer being investment banks. Read the rest of this entry »

Although not yet official, the verdict is on the way. Bear Stearns led the death march a few months ago. Now, Lehman’s bankruptcy filing signals the halfway mark of what will end up being the death of Wall Street. Now Goldman Sachs stands alone as the sole remaining true Wall Street firm. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past year, 22,000 New Yorkers who work on Wall Street have lost their jobs, according to a Crain’s New York Business estimate. And far more bloodletting is likely to come. Read the rest of this entry »

Oil prices have shot up more than $10 to a new record above $138 a barrel after a Morgan Stanley analyst predicted prices could hit $150 by the Fourth of July. Read the rest of this entry »