By Peter Morici

President Obama is shameless to cite J.P. Morgan’s $3 billion trading loss as evidence banks need more regulation. More accurately, the debacle raises serious questions about incompetence and corruption among federal regulators and inside the Obama White House.

J.P. Morgan’s Chief Investment Office got in trouble trying to undo positions—first the CIO bet bearish on corporate bonds, through derivatives on an index of those securities, and then tried to bet bullish Read More »

• 1 Comment

Denials, delays will deepen the impact.

By  Paul B. Farrell for MarketWatch

In a rather alarming commentary for MarketWatch, Paul Farrell forewarns us “Warning, tighten your belts, America’s new Age of Austerity is already here, today. There I said it. I admit it. And you better too. Prepare now. Could be like the 1930s depression austerity.”

He states that “America is still in denial”, and that we need to prepare for “classic economic austerity.” And, Read More »

• 0 Comments

EDITOR’S COMMENT: I have a lot of respect for Paul Craig Roberts and his economic outlook, but his latest comments are most disconcerting, as he has been able to focus on the one BIG MISTAKE made in recent years, and that is financial deregulation, which he believes is the “one single source” for our financial crisis. Not surprisingly, a number of his comments dovetail with a number of the “collapse-type” comments that Read More »

• 4 Comments

By Charles Hugh Smith

Debt, risk and employment are in a death-spiral of malinvestment and debt-based consumption.

Standard-issue financial pundits (SIFPs) and economists look at debt, risk and the job market as separate issues. No wonder they can’t make sense of our “jobless recovery”: the three are intimately and causally connected. An entire book could be written about debt, risk and jobs, but let’s see if we can’t shed some light on a Read More »

• 1 Comment

By Peter Morici

Recently, Beijing announced it would permit the yuan to rise in value as much as one percent each day. This was greeted by China watchers as an important indication Beijing would finally permit the yuan to rise against the dollar significantly enough to reduce the U.S. trade imbalance with the Middle Kingdom.

Although the Obama Administration views the yuan as terribly undervalued and the resulting advantage this offers Chinese manufacturers in Read More »

• 0 Comments

By Alan Caruba

We teach children to acknowledge and accept blame when they do something wrong. It is an important and useful trait in life. Those who do not learn this remain emotionally stunted children their entire life. I am, of course, speaking of President Barack Hussein Obama and I shudder to think of the continued damage he can do to the nation during his remaining months in office.

As Fox News’ Doug McKelway Read More »

• 0 Comments

By Peter Morici

If Greece leaves the euro, the U.S. economy could easily slip into recession, but given the long term consequences of Europe struggling with a currency regime that makes little sense, that cost is worth bearing.

Essentially, Athens would exchange drachma for euro in circulation among its inhabitants, remark private debts and bank accounts to dracham, and until conditions stabilized, limit withdrawals at Greek banks and capital outflows.

As the drachma fell in Read More »

• 0 Comments

By Bill Bonner

They say that breaking up is hard to do
Now I know that it’s true.

— Neil Sedaka

What’s the Greek word for ‘chutzpah’? We don’t know either.

But the leader of the communists/socialists, Alexis Tsipras, has it. He must have heard that old saying:

“When you owe your bank $100,000, you can’t sleep at night. When you owe your bank $1 million, your banker can’t sleep at night.”

Since the Greeks Read More »

• 0 Comments

EDITOR’S COMMENT: I have been aware for several weeks of some of the questions being raised regarding the Situation Room photo that the Obama administration has been so eagerly promoting. Frankly, I wasn’t originally convinced that this photo was “touched up” or “photoshopped”, but as additional insight and facts have been made available, and, after reading these excellent comments by Mara Zebest for American Thinker, I now do believe that there is a Read More »

• 0 Comments