Does $700 Billion Deserve This Much Attention?
Could the printing presses go any faster?

Whack-a-Mole Can't Prevent-a-Crash

Each problem brings out Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke or U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to whack the mole back underground with some billions of taxpayer money and another program meant to save an industry. The problem is that once deflation gets a-hold of an economy, it's no longer a mole problem.

Why The Fed Can't Print Our Way Out Of Deflation

"Big Ben Fires Up The Choppers," reveals a recent Forbes article. "Choppers" being the "helicopter" from which the Federal Reserve will drop bundles of printed money into the hands of the public, thus staving off deflation. Will it work? Find out today...

Today's Government: Eclipsing FDR and the 1930s?
The jobless report

Can The Fed Stave Off Another "Great Depression"?

The Federal Reserve has fired more rounds on its bailout bazooka than Rambo in hopes of keeping the leading pillars of the U.S. economy afloat. This extension of virtually unlimited credit, says Bernanke, will stave off another Great Depression. Is He Right?

Deflation, Fiat Money, and Market Destruction
Yes, the Fed Chairman DID Say This in Public

Update: Today is Not Like 1929! No, It's Worse

Ben Bernanke says that today's current economic and financial woes don't compare with the Great Depression in the late 1920s and 1930s. Too bad he can't see what Bob Prechter sees – that today's problems are actually worse.

What Were You Reading at Dow 14,000?

Down 309 Points, Up 552 Points…Fast Enough For Ya?
Let's not even get into "reasons" why the Dow went bipolar on November 13.

Not that we haven't seen markets like these before. Since at least September, volatility in the stock market has been off the charts (no pun intended.) Still, what we witnessed today (Nov. 13) was staggering even if you didn't have an open position. (God help you if you did.)

Yes, OF COURSE This Is the Way to Run A Bailout
You underestimate the government's control of the financial system at your own peril

Like an absolute monarch, government alone elects to disclose what it does -- it can also refuse to disclose anything, with impunity. This kind of power the Robber Barons of the 19th century imagined only in their wildest dreams...

The $700 Billion Dollar Question
Is the U.S. in a better position to weather the global downturn?

Global deflation means global recession. Still, come to think of it, as bad as it may get in the U.S., our financial, service and industrial diversifications would probably make the U.S. dollar and equities a good bet, on a relative strength basis.

Do Bailouts Work? Wait Till You See This Chart
Why isn't the stock market responding to the govenment bailouts? Here's the answer.

In the last month, the finanical powers-that-be have pulled the trigger on a "bailout bazooka" AND dropped the ultimate bailout A-bomb. YET -- the big, bad grizzly goes unscathed, taking the financial world by storm like some indestructible Bearzilla, squashing every major monument to wealth in its wake. The latest casualty: the Dow Jones Industrial Average...

A Trend That's Bigger Than Every News Story You Can Name
Connecting the Dots Couldn't Be More Obvious -- NOT

It doesn't wash. News can't reverse the dominant trend, and every news story you can name has been smaller than this trend for the past 18 months....

Want to Know How Big the Liquidity Problem Really Is? Here's A Comparison
Why The Crisis Has Reached Such An Acute Phase

During the past two weeks the liquidity crisis has grown worse literally by the day. And the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15 did indeed trigger this acute phase of the debacle. Perhaps this simple comparison can show the scale of the problem....

Historic Bailout Vote: House, Senate Vote On Bailout Plan To 'Rescue' Financial Markets – Can It?

News reports say the Senate is preparing to vote on a revised plan Wednesday evening, but the question remains: Will this bailout plan – or “rescue” effort, if you prefer the government's term for it – save the financial markets?

"What We Do" -- Longest Page on the Fed's Web Site?
Did you know the Fed accepts stocks as collateral for loans?

I will agree that a word like "Facility" sounds so much more, well, fiduciary... even if a descriptive phrase like "Come and get it!" is arguably more precise. Thing is, every time the Fed makes the credit window bigger the list of banks still around to use it gets smaller.

The Bailouts Can’t Buy Happiness

A Reckoning On An Epic Scale
The Crisis Is Not Containable by Fiscal, Monetary or Political Solutions

"Reckon" is an Old English (OE) word, which means it's been around too long to know when its usage began. The Oxford English Dictionary includes several meanings for "reckon," from the mundane ("to count or put straight") to the unnerving ("account for one's life to God after death")....

Buy This Bailout or We'll Shoot This Bank
And Thoughts on A $700 Billion Law Unto Himself

That magazine cover came to mind as I thought about how the Congressional bailout talks imploded on Thursday night, and how the announcement of Washington Mutual Bank's failure came on Friday morning. My inner cynic wondered whether the seizure of WaMu's assets was a "we're serious" message to the Congress from the Treasury and Fed -- as in, "Buy Bailout or We'll Shoot Another Bank"...

Bailing Out Speculators Just Like a Bad Liver Transplant

Politicians are converting bales of privately issued bad credit into what the government calls money. As we know, values do not come from nothing. So where does the value handed over to all these broke creditors come from?