Trends This Week – Markets on the rise? – 02.15.17

Markets and small business optimism continue to climb under President Trump, aided by deregulation, tax deals, and stimulus programs. While markets and employment have grown, real wages have hardly made gains, spelling out a spike in mortgage and subprime auto loan delinquencies. Added to the number of populist parties wanting out of the Eurozone, turmoil is looming over the commodity and equity markets, further pushing the prices of safe-haven assets such as gold.

The Gary Null Show – 09.15.16

Today On The Gary Null Show, Gary plays a very important audio clip entitled Reality Check: How Does Nobody Go To Jail In Wells Fargo Case After over 1.2 Million People Were Defrauded? And Why No Matter What Other Crimes The Bank Committed, They Have Been Granted Immunity! Before that Gary gives some insightful personal commentaries on the student loan industry and who really controls Washington. In the opening health segment Gary gives you the health benefits of peppercorn. All this and so much more on today’s Gary Null Show

Michael Snyder – The One Trillion Dollar Consumer Auto Loan Bubble Is Beginning To Burst

Do you remember the subprime mortgage meltdown from the last financial crisis?  Well, this time around we are facing a subprime auto loan meltdown.  In recent years, auto lenders have become more and more aggressive, and they have been increasingly willing to lend money to people that should not be borrowing money to buy a new vehicle under any circumstances.  …

Andrea Germanos – Unlike US, Ireland Just Sent Three Bankers to Jail for Role in 2008 Crisis

A Dublin court has sent three former senior banking executives to jail for committing “sham transactions” in an effort to deceive customers and shareholders during the 2008 financial crisis. “The trio will be among the first senior bankers globally to be jailed for their role in the collapse of a bank during the crisis,” as Reuters reports. Former Anglo Irish Bank executive …

Every Single Bloody Market Is Manipulated!

The Credit Market Is Manipulated Giant American banks said they had to be bailed out or else the American economy would crash. It wasn’t just the $700 billion “Tarp” bailout in 2008. In reality, a large portion of the big banks’ profitscome from taxpayer bailouts and subsidies (see this, this and this). At the same time, the big banks have sat on the money the government threw at them – with …

Refinancing is dead: a generation of Hard Times will continue until secularly real wages improve

On Monday I gave what I think is a reasonable roadmap to the next recession.  I wanted to follow up a little. The post from nearly 10 years ago was entitled, “Are Hard Times Near?  The great decline in interest rates is ending.”  The theory is right in the title.  Since the 1970s, real average hourly earnings had declined.  Average Americans coped …

Shawn Aiken – New Jersey Divests from Payday Lending

When Phyllis Salowe-Kaye learned that the New Jersey State Investment Council (NJSIC) had invested 50 million state pension dollars with a private equity firm that used some of the funds to purchase a predatory payday lender, she went through the proverbial roof. The longtime executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action (NJCA) quickly assembled a powerful coalition of consumer protection …

Bill Holter – Assets and Liabilities… And “Debt Saturation”

We live in a world where the difference between assets and liabilities has been blurred. In the old days, an asset was something you “owned” while a liability was something you “owed”. Over the years as everything became securitized, someone else’s liability is now routinely someone’s asset but ONLY thought of as an asset. It has always been this way …

Cracking Down on Abusive Debt Collectors

Have you ever picked up your phone to find an aggressive voice on the other end demanding payments on a debt you know nothing about? You’re far from alone. Once you’re in the sights of a debt collector, the impact on your life can be devastating: Your wages can be garnished and your credit ruined. You might lose your driver’s …

Quentin Fottrell – Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings

Americans are living right on the edge — at least when it comes to financial planning. Approximately 62% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts and 21% don’t even have a savings account, according to a new survey of more than 5,000 adults conducted this month by Google Consumer Survey forpersonal finance website GOBankingRates.com. “It’s worrisome that …