Housing Crash?: U.S. Existing Home Sales Fall By The Most In Six Years

Home For Sale - Public DomainWe just got more evidence that a major economic slowdown is underway here in the United States.  Existing home sales were down a whopping 7.1 percent during the month of February, and this represented the biggest decline that we have seen in six years.  This is yet another sign that we are in the early stages of a new crisis that is eerily reminiscent of what happened back in 2008.  The truth is that most U.S. consumers are tapped out, and when you are tapped out it is really hard to get a mortgage.  Banks aren’t really fond of lending money to people that can’t pay it back, and in recent years housing prices in many areas have risen to levels that are beyond the reach of most middle class families. (Read More...)

The Economic And Financial Problems In Europe Are Only Just Beginning…

Euro Gears - Public DomainRight now, the financial world is focused on the breathtaking stock market crash in China, but don’t forget to keep an eye on what is happening in Europe.  Collectively, the European Union has a larger population than the United States, a larger economy than either the U.S. or China, and the banking system in Europe is the biggest on the planet by far.  So what happens in Europe really matters, and at this point the European economy is absolutely primed for a meltdown.  European debt levels have never been higher, European banks are absolutely loaded with non-performing loans and high-risk derivatives, and the unemployment rate in the eurozone is currently more than double the unemployment rate in the United States.  In all the euphoria surrounding the “deal” that temporarily kept Greece in the eurozone, I think that people have forgotten that the economic and financial fundamentals in Europe have continued to deteriorate.  Whether Greece ultimately leaves the eurozone or not, a great financial crisis is inevitably coming to Europe.  It is just a matter of time. (Read More...)

The Banks Show No Mercy: 10 Foreclosure Horror Stories That Will Blow Your Mind

The Banks Show No Mercy: 10 Foreclosure Horror Stories That Will Blow Your MindDuring the last housing crash, the big banks begged the federal government for help and they received it, but when average Americans ask the big banks for help most of the time the banks show no mercy whatsoever.  If you fall behind on your mortgage payments, the big banks have shown that they are willing to be absolutely ruthless.  They will change locks in the middle of the night, they will toss disabled veterans and families with children out into the street in the middle of winter, and sometimes once the foreclosure process has begun they will not even allow someone to come forward and offer to pay off the loan if they think that they can make more money by selling the home.  The big banks will often string homeowners along for months or even years with loan modification promises, only to drop the hammer on them at the most inopportune time.  Over the past several years there has been case after case where mortgage documents have “disappeared”, where big banks have “manufactured” missing documents out of thin air and there have even been cases where big banks have tried to foreclose on homes that do not even have a mortgage.  Once in a while, the big banks get a small slap on the wrist, but nobody ever really gets into much trouble for any of this.  In fact, the big banks just continue to gain even more market share and even more power.  Hopefully when some of these foreclosure horror stories start to become publicized more widely we will start to see some real changes in the marketplace. (Read More...)

The Last Housing Crash Is Not Even Over But Bernanke Is Already Setting The Stage For The Next One

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is determined to push mortgage rates to record low levels and he is encouraging the banks that the Fed regulates to make home loans more freely.  Wait a second – isn’t that exactly what caused the last housing bubble?  After 9/11, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates and this caused mortgage rates to steadily fall.  Financial institutions were urged to help “expand home ownership” in America, and many of them started making home loans to people who never, ever should have gotten home loans.  When mortgage rates started to go back up, millions of families with adjustable rate mortgages discovered that they could not make their monthly payments.  Mortgage delinquencies absolutely soared and large numbers of mortgage-backed securities suddenly turned into garbage.  So what is the Fed doing about it?  The Fed recently announced another round of quantitative easing in which it will buy 40 billion dollars worth of these mortgage-backed securities a month.  Essentially the Fed is clearing the bad financial paper out of the system and is creating the conditions for another housing bubble.  But will we really fix our problems by going back and doing the same things that got us into trouble in the first place? (Read More...)

10 Shocking Quotes About What QE3 Is Going To Do To America

Ready or not, QE3 is here, and the long-term effects of this reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve are going to be absolutely nightmarish.  The Federal Reserve is hoping that buying $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities per month will spur more lending and more economic activity.  But that didn’t happen with either QE1 or QE2.  Both times the banks just sat on most of the extra money.  As I pointed out the other day, U.S. banks are already sitting on $1.6 trillion in excess reserves.  So will pumping them up with more cash suddenly make them decide to start lending?  Of course not.  In addition, QE3 is not likely to produce many additional jobs.  As I showed in a previous article, the employment level did not jump up as a result of either QE1 or QE2.  So why will this time be different?  But what did happen under both QE1 and QE2 is that a lot of the money ended up pumping up the financial markets.  So once again we should see stock prices go up (at least in the short-term) and commodities such as gold, silver, food and oil should also rise.  But that also means that average American families will be paying more for the basic necessities that they buy on a regular basis.  The most dangerous aspect of QE3, however, is what it is going to do to the U.S. dollar.  Most of the rest of the world uses the U.S. dollar to conduct international trade, and by choosing to recklessly print money Ben Bernanke is severely damaging international confidence in our currency.  If at some point the rest of the world rejects the dollar and no longer wants to use it as a reserve currency we are going to be facing a crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before.  The real debate about QE3 should not be about whether or not it will help the economy a little bit in the short-term.  Rather, everyone should be talking about the long-term implications and about how QE3 is going to accelerate the destruction of the dollar. (Read More...)

19 Warnings About A Coming Global Financial Catastrophe

Global leaders have tried just about everything that they can think of, but the coming global financial catastrophe continues to march steadily toward us.  We have seen “stimulus packages”, quantitative easing, bond buying, interest rate cuts, emergency economic summits, bailout packages for banks, bailout packages for entire nations, “Operation Twist”, unprecedented government intervention in business and massive amounts of new government debt and yet nothing seems to revive the global economy.  In fact, it looks like we are rapidly heading into the second dip of a “double dip recession”.  Unfortunately, many believe that this next dip will be more like a full-blown depression.  All over the world, top economic experts are warning that we are facing an unprecedented crisis of debt and insolvency that will result in a global financial catastrophe.  The eurozone is drowning in debt, the U.S. government is drowning in debt and major banks all over the globe are drowning in debt.  Global authorities have been trying to patch the system together and keep it going, but the incredible damage that all of this debt has done is now becoming apparent to everyone.  The global debt bubble that has fueled prosperity in the western world for the last several decades is getting ready to burst, and when that happens the chaos that will result will be absolutely horrifying. (Read More...)

29 Amazing Stats Which Prove That The Rich Are Getting Richer And The Poor Are Getting Poorer

In the United States today, there is one group of people that is actually living the American Dream.  The ultra-wealthy have seen their incomes absolutely explode over the past three decades.  Meanwhile, the U.S. middle class has been steadily declining and the ranks of the poor have been swelling.  But this is what always happens when an economy becomes highly centralized.  Today, gigantic corporations and “too big to fail” banks totally dominate our economic system.  The whole game is rigged.  Our system is now designed to funnel wealth away from the bottom 90 percent of the population and into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.  When you allow a handful of giant entities to run everything, it is going to inevitably create a situation where there are a small number of very big winners and a massive amount of losers.  In America today, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  Yes, there will always be poor people.  Yes, those that work really hard and produce something of great value for society should be greatly rewarded.  The way that our system should work is that it should empower individuals and small businesses to come up with new ideas, start companies, create jobs and produce massive amounts of new wealth.  But instead, the number of small businesses in America is rapidly declining.  The giant banks and the giant corporations that run everything are constantly running around stomping all of the “little guys” out of existence.  This has created an environment where the rich are constantly getting richer and the poor are constantly getting poorer. (Read More...)

1 Through 30 – The Coming U.S. Financial Crisis By The Numbers

The United States is drowning in a sea of red ink from coast to coast and most Americans have absolutely no idea what is about to happen.  Hopefully you have started to prepare for the coming U.S. financial crisis.  If not, hopefully this article will be a wake up call for you.  Right now, governments all over Europe are on the verge of financial implosion.  Most Americans aren’t paying much attention to that, but they should be, because what is happening to Greece and Italy right now will eventually be happening here.  Just recently, the U.S. national debt passed the 15 trillion dollar mark.  State and local government debt is also at record levels.  Tens of millions of American families are in debt up to their eyeballs, and millions more Americans fell into poverty last year.  Meanwhile, the “too big to fail” banks just keep getting larger and the Federal Reserve continues to inflate the debt bubble.  At some point this debt bubble is going to burst, and when it does it is going to unleash financial hell all over America. (Read More...)