Berkshire Hathaway sitting on $38 billion in cash, waiting to buy distressed real estate, Buffett sees writing on the wall

Ah, gotta love Warren Buffett. Always the smartest guy in the room in my book. And the fact that he gave away almost his entire fortune last year to charity makes this guy, even though he's one of the richest people in history, a saint in my book.

Remember last year, when he and Charlie said there was a massive real estate bubble that would go bust? Yup.

Remember when he said he was hording cash so he could buy assets at distressed prices after the crash? Nice play.

Remember how he took his dollars and had it in foreign currency during the dollar downfall? Oh, man, nice work. He's also buying foreign companies and moving out of the US when he can.

And here's his comments yesterday on the unsustainable US debt and "soft landings", and how this will unfold.

You can learn a lot from Buffett. Imagine him and The Corrupt David Lereah in the same room.

"Americans will live better 10 or 20 years from now," Buffett wrote. "But our citizens will also be forced every year to ship a significant portion of their current production abroad merely to service the cost of our huge debtor position.

"At some point in the future U.S. workers and voters will find this annual 'tribute' so onerous that there will be a severe political backlash," he continued. "How that will play out in markets is impossible to predict -- but to expect a 'soft landing' seems like wishful thinking."

I just had to. One more time. SUZANNE! YOU RUINED MY F**KING LIFE!

Watch this video again, and then fondly recall recent comments by Lereah, Toll, Mozilo, Bernanke, Retsinas and Cramer

Iamfacingforeclosure.com's Casey Serin loses another one to foreclosure. Where's the cash?

I just don't get the whole cash-back at close thing. What would stop me today (besides ethics and morals) from going out and buying ten homes, getting $100,000 cash back on all of them, taking all that tax-free cash and putting it into a Swiss banking account, then never making a payment on any of the homes, getting foreclosed on, and turning in the keys, $1,000,000 richer?

Seriously, what, if anything, would stop someone from doing that today?

Casey lost another one to foreclosure this week. And still no call from the Feds. And you know there are thousands, THOUSANDS, of Caseys out there.

Larchmont property no more. This is my second foreclosure, after the Dallas house got foreclosed several months ago by the hard money lender. This was my first experienced visiting a foreclosure auction.

I feel a slight sense of relief. One less house to worry about. Now just memories. This was my biggest cash-back at close and the worst deal as far as numbers go. I’m going to have to write the full background story on this deal soon, including why I bought it, and what my plan was (or the lack thereof).

The Second Great Depression?

Just read this recent column by Mike Whitney. The whole damn thing.

And get ready.

The greatest housing crash in American history is underway. This is one for the history books.

The Second Great Depression

This week's data on the sagging real estate market leaves no doubt that the housing bubble is quickly crashing to earth and that hard times are on the way.

The bottom line is that inventories are up, sales are down, profits are eroding, and the building industry is facing a steady downturn well into the foreseeable future.

The ripple effects of the housing crash will be felt throughout the overall economy; shrinking GDP, slowing consumer spending and putting more workers in the growing unemployment lines.

Congress is now looking into the shabby lending practices that shoehorned millions of people into homes that they clearly cannot afford.

There's no doubt now, that Fed chairman Alan Greenspan's plan to pump zillions of dollars into the system via "low interest rates" has created the biggest monster-bubble of all time and set the stage for a deep economic retrenchment.

The meltdown in housing will soon be felt in the stock market which appears to be lagging the real estate market by about 6 months. Soon, reality will set in on Wall Street just as it has in the housing sector and the "loose money" that Greenspan generated with his mighty printing press will flee to foreign shores.

It looks as though this may already be happening even though the stock market is still flying high. On Friday, the government reported that net capital inflows reversed from the requisite $70 billion to AN OUTFLOW OF $11 BILLION!

It's all bad news. The global liquidity bubble is limping towards the reef and when it hits it'll send shock-waves through the global economic system.

Greenspan successfully piloted the nation into virtual insolvency. In fact, the parallels between our present situation and the period preceding the Great Depression are striking.

Now, 77 years later, Greenspan has led us sheep-like to the same precipice. The economic dilemma we're facing could have been avoided if the expansion of personal credit had been curtailed by prudent monetary policy at the Federal Reserve and if wealth was more evenly distributed as it was in the '60s and '70s. But that's not the case; so we're headed for hard times.

Everyone enjoying the crash? Anyone surprised? Oh, is this gonna get ugly.

As anyone who's read "Manias, Panics and Crashes" knows too well, at this point in the cycle we always see dis-credit, where lending is rapidly drawn in.

And the resulting credit crunch just speeds up the panic and crash.

U.S. stocks to fall sharply at open as jitters resume

U.S. stocks are expected to open sharply lower on Thursday as nervousness in Asian markets, rumors about distressed lenders and the latest U.S. inflation figures, rekindled the selling pressure that sent the market plunging two days ago.

In addition, rumors that a big lender was in distress were floating around the market, according to research firm Action Economics.

"Investors are worried about the strength in the economy and the Fed's assumption that housing has hit bottom," said Pado.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Is America in the mess it's in today because The Greatest Generation is dying off - you know, the ones who lived through the Great Depression, and learned the lessons of frugality, selflessness, live within your means, prepare for a rainy day, take care of your fellow man, and that yes, the financial system can at any time implode horrifically?

If nobody is there to teach the lessons of The Great Depression, and the American education system spits out PS2 addicted dolts who don't know their history, and the Baby Boomer Consumer generation teaches their kids the wrong lessons (consume, consume, consume, me, me, me), then is it too much of a surprise that most Americans have no idea what's coming, and are woefully unprepared?