Isn't it kinda odd that Wall Street and America would be BETTER off if Ben Bernanke and the Fed would actually RAISE rates?

You have to feel for Bernanke. It must suck waking up every morning to this mess.

That said, it's time for him to man-up and RAISE THE F*CKING RATE!

And he knows it.

And people paying $5 a gallon (should) know it.

And Wall Street knows it.

And poor Americans living in or visiting Europe know it.

He just doesn't want to do it before the election, since it's his job to get incumbents re-elected, not do what's best for America.

Check out this video. And coming November if not sooner, get ready for the rate hikes.

Bear Realities: Fed Rate Hike Could Aid Ailing Market, says Schwab's Sonders

Ben Bernanke and the Fed deviously stopped publishing M3 (money supply) on March 23, 2006. And now you know why.

HousingPANIC made a stink about this when it happened back in March 2006. But barely a news story was written, and not a peep from Congress was heard.

I think it's pretty obvious to most now that your government lies to you. Your government, burdened by a $53 trillion IOU, is in a position where it has to deceive you. And if you believe the government's inflation data, or social benefit promises, you are a fool.

But I think it's getting tougher and tougher to hide the truth. Now it's out there for everyone to see.

You can see it at the grocery store. You can see it at the gas station. You can see it with the sea of "foreclosure" and "for sale" signs up and down your street.

You can fool some of the people some of the time... And thanks to shadowstats for showing everyone the ugly truth, even if we're no longer supposed to see it...

I don't think you all understand how bad this is gonna get. Got train? Got bus? Got a high-MPG car?

And god forbid you got Maricopa Arizona, Naperville Illinois or any far-flung exurb.

Thank you Ben Bernanke. In order to bail out your banker buddies, you've f*cked America.

Got Inflation?

If REAL inflation is running at 7% to 11%, doesn't that mean that the US economy growing at only 0.6% really signals a pretty massive recession? And that "flat" US average incomes are actually plummeting? And doesn't that mean that the 12.7% reported fall in home prices is more like 20%?

One more time - if you believe the government's inflation number, you are a fool. But it's really not a question of whether you believe it or not, just go to the grocery store and gas station. The real inflation report can be found there.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

In what year will Ben Bernanke's successor have to raise interest rates to 10%+, in a desperate attempt to repair the damage caused by the biggest wuss ever to hold the office?

"Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo warn 'delusional' investors on stocks." So what's your portfolio looking like today?

So what's your investment portfolio look like today?

On stocks, are you a bull or a bear?

I'm neither. I'm still into "asset preservation" and currency diversification. Commodities, food, oil, foreign markets, multinationals, dividend payers, foreign currencies, gold, silver. Knowing Bernanke is doing all he can to start a new bubble somewhere (hint - it's already well underway) while destroying the dollar.

Some companies are going to be going away these next few months, others will see their stocks continue to get pummeled, while others will do just fine. And there's a LOT more surprises to come.

I have one word for this market: Dangerous. Invest carefully. Read Crash Proof. Read Manias, Panics and Crashes. And don't put all your eggs in the US dollar. Cash is King - but cash comes in many forms, not just Bernanke's US dollars.

Wall Street faces the growing risk of an equities bloodbath in coming months as the credit crunch spreads to the wider economy and earnings crumble, according to a pair of grim reports issued by Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.

David Kostin, the chief US investment guru for Goldman Sachs, expects the S&P 500 index of Wall Street equities to plummet a further 15pc over the "near term" as companies scramble to lower their outlook for this year.

"Although only a few firms have reported first quarter results, early signs are awful. We expect a swath of lowered profit guidance," he said in a research note published today, entitled 'Fasten Seatbelts'.

Mr Kostin, who replaced the ever-bullish Abby Cohen as chief strategist in December, expects the S&P index to reach 1,160, which would amount to a fall of 27pc from the bull market peak of 1,576 in September and enter the annals as a relatively severe bear market.

Scott Anderson, chief economist at Wells Fargo, is equally pessimistic, describing the bullish views of some market players as "bordering on delusional".

"The equity markets have not yet priced in a prolonged downturn in economic growth in my opinion. We are still in the early stages of the credit crunch. Earnings estimates for the second half of the year are likely still far too high," he said.

Stop what you're doing and take one minute to sign the Taxpayers Against a Wall Street and Mortgage Bailout online petition

8,200 signatures so far today. Come on folks - and fellow bubble bloggers - let's get that to 80,000

Sign here. It's easy.

To: President Bush, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Christopher Dodd, Senator Charles Schumer and members of Congress

Please do not support the efforts to bail out mortgage holders and mortgage lenders with my tax dollars.

As a responsible citizen, I do not believe it is right for you to ask me to pay for other peoples’ financial excesses, especially since a bailout encourages lenders to continue making predatory loans, with the assumption that taxpayers are on the hook. Further, we believe that the liability of the mortgage mess should NOT be shifted to GSE’s Freddie and Fannie.

I appreciate the goal of helping people to have access to housing, but any proposed bailout will only reward lenders and borrowers who acted irresponsibly, and it will punish people who work hard and diligently manage their finances by not buying houses which they cannot afford.

The housing market has begun a process of correction. This is necessary in order to keep housing affordable in the long-term. Let the market correct so we can achieve stability again, and people are able to save and afford the house of their dreams over time. That really is the true American Dream.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Alan Greenspan, no longer sleeping well and realizing he will forever be blamed for this housing bubble and crash, tries to spin away the blame

Surprising piece in the FT today from Greenspan, where he seeks to refute a critic who blamed him for the housing bubble.

"Housing bubble? Nah, had nothing to do with it" Greenspan essentially retorts.

Well, let's make HP the judge and jury today in regards to Mr. Greenspan and his housing bubble. Here's my list of charges, please add to it:

1) Dropped interest rates too low in a panic

2) Kept interest rates too low for too long

3) Failed to regulate the out of control mortgage lending industry he was supposed to regulate

4) Didn't speak out against the bubble ('oh, a wee bit of froth' cutesy cutesy is not speaking out)

5) Falsely said the Fed could and should do nothing to deflate bubbles

6) Stupidly steered people away from fixed-rate mortgages and into risky ARMs at exactly the wrong time (before he began raising rates), while encouaging the out of control REIC to get even more creative and even more stupid with exotic lending

7) Didn't warn Americans that they could be financially destroyed if they bought a home at a price that was not justified by the fundamentals

Here's Greenspan, approaching his likely date with the gates of hell, futily trying to salvage his destroyed reputation. Too long to print here, but read the whole thing. I did like this one sentence (but Angelo Mozilo won't) - too bad HP'ers knew what was going on and Greenspan didn't. Amazing.

"Could tightened regulation of subprimes have contained some of the reprehensible, and presumably criminal, acts of lenders? Probably. But the broader crisis would likely have arisen even with increased micro-surveillance."

April 7, 2008 Special Edition: Welcome to RicePANIC. Seriously. Now we have rice panic. And it's gonna get ugly.

So rice prices have soared over 50% in the past few weeks, and the basic food staple of billions is now at risk.

Housing panic is meaningless versus rice panic. Screwed homedebtors can just walk away and rent. Screwed rice eaters, well, they die.

Thank you Ben Bernanke. Thank you Alan Greenspan. Thank you corrupt communist leaders of China. Thank you Wal-Mart shoppers. Thank you McMansion buyers. Thank you Hummer & SUV buyers. Thank you people who put food in your car's gastank. Thank you politicians who encourage farmland to be used to grow fuel instead of food.

One day people will wise up on the interconnectedness of man. They'll better see the repercussions of their actions. That day is coming closer.

Fears of unrest rise across Asia as rice price surges 30% in a day

Rice prices jumped 30 per cent to a record high yesterday, raising fears of fresh outbreaks of social unrest across Asia, where the grain is a staple food for more than 2.5bn people.

Global rice stocks are at their lowest since 1976. While prices of wheat, corn and other agricultural commodities have surged since late 2006, the rice prices increase started in January.

So now we know how close we came to a complete and total meltdown of the global financial system as Ben Bernanke spills the beans. So, who's next?

"Too Big to Fail"

You'll be hearing a lot of that in the next weeks, months and years.

Fannie. Freddie. Lehman. Washington Mutual. Countrywide. IndyMac. Ambac. Sallie Mae. FHLB. Pulte. BofA. Wells Fargo. Merrill Lynch. Goldman Sachs. Hell even Home Depot. Too big to fail. Big Daddy Government will be there for you, dishing out trillions to keep the Big Lie alive.

Here's Helicopter Ben today, telling the world what we already knew. The US government will be bailing out stupid companies who made stupid decisions that were run by stupid and corrupt managers because the stupid taxpayers and stupid media do nothing to stop them. Northern Rock and Bear Stearns were nothing. Just wait.

On March 13, Bear Stearns advised the Federal Reserve and other government agencies that its liquidity position had significantly deteriorated and that it would have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy the next day unless alternative sources of funds became available.

This news raised difficult questions of public policy. Normally, the market sorts out which companies survive and which fail, and that is as it should be. However, the issues raised here extended well beyond the fate of one company. Our financial system is extremely complex and interconnected, and Bear Stearns participated extensively in a range of critical markets.

With financial conditions fragile, the sudden failure of Bear Stearns likely would have led to a chaotic unwinding of positions in those markets and could have severely shaken confidence. The companys failure could also have cast doubt on the financial positions of some of Bear Stearns thousands of counterparties and perhaps of companies with similar businesses.

Given the current exceptional pressures on the global economy and financial system, the damage caused by a default by Bear Stearns could have been severe and extremely difficult to contain. Moreover, the adverse effects would not have been confined to the financial system but would have been felt broadly in the real economy through its effects on asset values and credit availability.

To prevent a disorderly failure of Bear Stearns and the unpredictable but likely severe consequences of such a failure for market functioning and the broader economy, the Federal Reserve, in close consultation with the Treasury Department, agreed to provide funding to Bear Stearns through JPMorgan Chase. Over the following weekend, JPMorgan Chase agreed to purchase Bear Stearns and assumed Bears financial obligations.

Jim Rogers on Helicopter Ben and the $400 billion in crap junk REIC collateral the US taxpayer is now stuck with

Like Schiff, everything Jim Rogers predicted has happened. And he is really giving it to Bernanke and the Fed something fierce right now. Hope he has good security, and isn't using hookers.

Not a lot of people are pointing out that the Fed has taken hundreds of billions of total crap collateral onto their books, with no vote of Congress or oversight, that eventually the taxpayers will eat. And they're just getting started. The MSM is failing us - again. So I hope Rogers keeps letting it rip.

Here's the latest video. Enjoy. Hattip to tmtgm for the link and transcript. Here's one highlight:

If this is a nine inning baseball game, we're in the fourth inning and we have a long way to go. Mr. Bernanke may make it last longer and longer.

Remember Mr. Bernanke has taken $400 billion onto his balance sheet - he's taken mortgages, car loans...

You know, soon, Mr. Bernanke is going to be in his helicopter, flying around collecting rent from people and collecting car payments. He's going to be selling used cars soon. This is insane.

Hank Paulson, with a straight face: " I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current market turmoil"

And then of course he announces a ton of new regulations to make sure this mess doesn't happen again. And he adds "housing remains by far the biggest downside risk to our economy.". Yes, Hank, it is. Why? BECAUSE THE FED SCREWED THE POOCH AND LET THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY RUN UNREGULATED AND OUT OF CONTROL EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR REGULATING THEM!

He can give the Fed more powers to regulate, but if they don't do their f*cking jobs, it's just sweeping it all under the rug. I don't trust the Fed. The Fed is the enemy of the American people. And empowering them even more should scare everyone.

If Paulson wanted some credibility with this plan, he should have blamed the Fed directly, thrown Greenspan under the bus, and said he was cleaning ship. But that's not what he did.

Monkeys I tell ya. Monkeys. Ones that can't even get their story straight. Ones that won't take the blame. Ones that need to be shown the door.

COUP ALERT: Bush and Paulson want to give even MORE powers to the Federal Reserve Bank. Be afraid America, be very afraid.

The Federal Reserve was supposed to regulate the lending industry and didn't. Maybe that was the plan - offload the responsibility, and then let the banks run ramshod.

So instead of proposing legislation to disband or rein in the Fed, George Bush and Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson (oops, I mean Treasury Secretary Paulson) want to give them more responsibilities (whether they choose to use them, or ignore them like they did in the past).

Here's the plan that SHOULD be being proposed:

DISBAND THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK. BRING THE POWER TO REGULATE THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY IN-HOUSE. STOP ALLOWING AN UNREGULATED AND UNCHECKED ORGANIZATION TO RUN THE FINANCIAL AFFAIRS OF THE UNITED STATES (INTO THE GROUND)

Be afraid America, be very afraid. Fear for your country, because your countrymen either don't understand or could care less.

The Federal Reserve Bank and its leaders have failed America and were directly responsible for creating this current mess. The blood of the housing bubble and crash is on their hands. They should be destroyed, not deployed.

Ron Paul is going to go nuts when he hears about this.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the government regulates the nation's financial services industry from banks and securities firms to mortgage brokers and insurance companies.

The plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve, according to a 22-page executive summary obtained by The Associated Press.

The Fed would be given broad authority to oversee financial market stability. That would include new powers to examine the books of any institution deemed to represent a potential threat to the proper functioning of the overall financial system.

FLASH: Senate to investigate Bush Administration meddling into Federal Reserve actions during Bear Stearns shotgun wedding fiasco

As you all know the Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent.

Yeah, right.

Ben Bernanke's head is so far up Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson's ass (oops, I mean US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's ass) that they might as well be the same person.

The truth will eventually come out as to Paulson and Bush's role in the Bear fiasco, their commitment with no Congressional approval of $29 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out Bear Stearns, and the ongoing coordination between the Fed and the Treasury to bail out Paulson's investment banker gambler buddies using taxpayer money.

And now, shockingly, our corrupt Congress is going to investigate this matter. What, didn't Grassley get his hush money this month?

Grassley Asks Whether Paulson Pushed Fed Into Bear Stearns Deal

The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said he wants to know whether Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressured Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke into brokering the deal that allowed the sale of Bear Stearns Cos. to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, who will be involved in one of two congressional inquiries into the deal, asked in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday whether Paulson pushed Bernanke into authorizing the $29 billion loan needed to make the sale or if the agreement was the result of an ``independent Fed decision.''

``We want to know the extent to which Paulson was involved in the deal,'' Grassley said. ``The extent to which this was a political decision by a political branch of government that was urged on the Fed is very important to me -- that that not happen.''

The banks will fail. The taxpayers will bail them out. Their shareholders will be crushed. The dollar will fall. It's just the way it's gonna be.

"If the government must bail the bank out … it should basically wipe out the management and wipe out the shareholders"

- David Beim, Columbia University, March 2008

"There probably will be some bank failures"

- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, February 2008

"There is a strong need for urgent action. I would be very, very seriously considering the possibility of using public funds in one form or another."

-Former Treasury Secretary and current Citigroup whore Robert Rubin, March 2008

Will Ben Bernanke and the Fed just say "f*ck it" and take rates down to 0% today?

He's gonna get there anyway, so might as well do it in one shot. They'll be calling him "ZIRPpy Ben" soon.

The dollar is f*cked. It's screwed. It's FUBAR. It's toast. It's dead.

Thank you Ben Bernanke. But at least we were warned.

So what do you think Ben's gonna do today?

Now that Eliot Spitzer has been conveniently eliminated, Bernanke, Bush and Paulson can have their way with the real whores - with taxpayer funds

I'm not saying the government had Spitzer set up to get him out of the way, he made his own bed. But the timing is a bit curious, with the hammer falling just hours after Spitzer had testified to congress on the out-of-control REIC, and threw Bush under the bus for the mortgage mess.

So it's party time at Ben and Hank's place, with nobody to stop the madness. Bring in the true whores now - Bear Stearns, JPMorganChase, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs their toxic-mortgage-STD-infested crew.

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

How? Follow the money.

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

"When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”

FLASH: Bear Stearns on verge of failure - emergency bailout by Fed underway. HP calls for the arrest of Bear CEO Alan Schwartz for false statements

Now things are getting interesting...

I'd like to see the crap toxic mortgage CDO's the US taxpayer via the New York Fed just bought.

Oh, wait, no, I really WOULDN'T like to see the crap toxic mortgage CDO's the US taxpayer just bought.

This one's not surprising, but what is amazing (and illegal) is that Bear's CEO Alan Schwartz put out these false and misleading statements this week:

Exhibit A: "Our balance sheet has not weakened at all," he said. "We don't see any pressure on our liquidity."

Exhibit B: "We don't see any pressure on our liquidity, let alone a liquidity crisis"

Exhibit C: "there is absolutely no truth to the rumors of liquidity problems that circulated today in the market"

COME ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA - GET ON THIS STORY LIKE FLIES ON SH*T. THE US TAXPAYER IS BEING ROBBED IN THE NIGHT AND YOU LAZY BUMS DO NOTHING!!!

JPMorgan Chase, With Federal Reserve Bank of NY, to Provide Funding to Bear Stearns

NEW YORK (AP) -- The federal government and JPMorgan Chase & Co. teamed up on a bailout of Bear Stearns Cos. on Friday, a last-ditch move to save the investment bank, which acknowledged its dire financial straits after a week of firm denials.

Bear Stearns lost half of its value within 30 minutes of the market open.

While it was not clear exactly how much money Chase would pump into Bear, a person familiar with the bailout, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private, said Chase may end up buying Bear Stearns outright.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Would you feel safest with your liquid savings tied up for the next 10 years:

1) US Dollars
2) Euros
3) Gold
4) Oil
5) Wheat & Corn
6) ________?


Then what are you doing about it?

Gold cracks $1000. What comes next: $500, or $2000?

Remember when people were mocking HP'ers for talking about gold when it was at $500?

Same people are probably still not getting it with gold at $1000

Here's the best I can sum this up: It's not about gold. It's about the dollar.

Oil, corn, wheat, soybeans, silver, aluminum, gold... It really doesn't matter. What matters is that the dollar is being turned into toilet paper on purpose by Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson and George Bush.

Invest wisely. Gold is a historically crappy investment, but has always been and will always be the #1 store of value when fiat currencies go bust.

You ain't seen nothing yet. But oh, what a wild ride it will be (up and down).