Loans

5 Trends That Are Destroying The Middle Class In America

The middle class in America has been shrinking for decades, and our leaders seem powerless to do anything about it. Two years ago, the middle class became a minority in this country for the first time ever. In other words, the middle class now accounts for less than 50 percent of the population. But back in the early 1970s, the middle class made up more than 60 percent of the population. I have often compared being in the middle class to playing a really bizarre game of musical chairs. When the music stops playing each month, more chairs are being pulled out of the middle class, and most of us are just hoping that we will still have a chair for the next go around. (Read More...)

A Run On The Banks Begins In Italy As Italian Banking Stocks Collapse

Italy Banner - Public DomainThe Italian financial meltdown that we have been waiting for has finally arrived. For quite a long time I have been warning my readers to watch Italy, and now people are starting to understand why. Italian banking stocks continued their collapse for a fifth consecutive day on Wednesday, and nervous Italians are beginning to quietly pull large amounts of money out of the banks. In particular, Monte dei Paschi is a complete and utter basket case at this point. A staggering one-third of their loans are “non-performing”, and the stock price has fallen a staggering 57 percent since 2016 began. Monte dei Paschi is going to need a major bailout, and the same thing could be said about almost all of the largest Italian banks. But where is the money going to come from? (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 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...)

19 Things That All High School Students Should Be Told Before They Go To College

Don’t you wish that someone had told you the truth before you went to college?  Don’t you wish that someone had told you that college has become a giant money making scam that is designed to drain as much money out of students and parents as possible?  Yes, college can be a profitable endeavor if you pick your field of study wisely, if you can get someone else to pay for at least some of it and if you can actually get a good job in that field when you graduate.  But most high school students are never told to weigh the pros and the cons before they run off to college.  The typical high school student is simply told to get into the “best school” that he or she can and to take out whatever loans are “necessary” to pay for that education.  Our high school students are assured that those student loans will be paid back easily once they get “good jobs” following graduation.  But the truth is that there are some other things that high school students should be told before they go off to college as well.  They should be told that student loan debt can cripple them financially for decades.  They should be told that the quality of education at most U.S. colleges and universities is a total joke.  They should be told that most college graduates do not get a “good job” once they graduate these days.  They should be told that after they receive their diplomas they are likely to end up flat broke, waiting tables and living with their parents. (Read More...)

The Looting Of America: The Federal Reserve Made $16 Trillion In Secret Loans To Their Bankster Friends And The Media Is Ignoring The Eye-Popping Corruption That Has Been Uncovered

A one-time limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has uncovered some eye-popping corruption at the Fed and the mainstream media is barely even covering it.  It turns out that the Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their bankster friends during the financial crisis.  You can read a copy of the GAO investigation for yourself right here.  These loans only went to the “too big to fail” banks and to foreign financial institutions.  Not a penny of these loans went to small banks or to ordinary Americans.  Not only did the banksters get trillions in nearly interest-free loans, but the Fed actually paid them over 600 million dollars to help run the emergency lending program.  The GAO investigation revealed some absolutely stunning conflicts of interest, and yet the mainstream media does not even seem interested.  Solid evidence of the looting of America has been put right in front of us, and yet hardly anyone wants to talk about it. (Read More...)

Is College Worth It?

Is college worth it?  Is a college education really worth the investment of time, money and energy?  Is a college degree really worth becoming enslaved to student loan debt that will haunt you for decades?  The truth is that a college education is a massive gamble.  For millions of Americans it works out well, but millions of other college graduates have found themselves completely unable to get a quality job in this economy and yet they are still trapped in a nightmare of student loan debt from which there is no escape.  Millions of young Americans have discovered that they have become “indentured servants” the moment they graduate.  The entire system encourages our young people to take out whatever college loans they “need” without worrying how they will pay them back because a college education is such a good “investment”.  Once upon a time, a college education was actually an almost automatic ticket to the middle class.  Today, a college education does not guarantee you anything, but for millions of Americans it does turn out to be an automatic ticket to student loan hell. (Read More...)

27 Amazing Statistics About The Real Estate Crash That Never Seems To End: More Foreclosures, More Underwater Mortgages And More Home Price Declines

The real estate crash that never seems to end appears to be getting even worse.  Home prices continue to go down, the number of underwater mortgages is soaring and the number of foreclosures set an all-time record in 2010.  The peak of the housing market was in 2005 and the subprime mortgage crisis erupted in 2008.  Shouldn’t things be getting better by now?  How many years is this real estate crash going to go on for?  Home builders and those that work in the construction industry are deeply suffering because new home sales continue to hover around record lows.  Mortgage professionals are having a really hard time because very few people are seeking home loans and many of those that are seeking loans cannot get approved.  Real estate agents all over the country are pulling their hair out in frustration and large numbers of them have left the industry completely.  The United States has never had such a prolonged real estate slump in the post-World War 2 era.  Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of indications that the real estate crash is going to get even worse. (Read More...)