1. Mike Whitney describes the “mother of all rip offs” and how big Wall Street bankers swindled investors worldwide, helped push the mortgage and housing bubbles to unprecedented heights, and currently appear to be getting off scott-free as American taxpayers are bearing the brunt of federal bail outs of mortgage borrowers and lenders.

It is fairly obvious to this blogger that massive banking institutions are run by individuals whose greed runs so deep and whose scruples can be counted on maybe one finger that they would willingly support plundering all productive American individuals if that meant saving their rear from simply having to take a golden parachute.

I have said it many times and I stand by it: there should be absolutely no taxpayer bail outs of banking institutions.

As responsible individuals, friendly readers, you should stand up and speak out about this nefarious injustice.

2. Nelson Hultberg lays into the Keynesian lunatics who are currently “running” (not quite) and ruining (DEFINITELY) our economy. Keynes’ idiotic philosophy of “in the long run we are all dead” has already been so heavily accepted that it is pretty well guaranteed that the mother of all economic and social crises will hit within the next generation. The audacity of elder generations to peddle this nonsense and push massive government debts onto their posterity is beyond shameful. The people pushing this debt-based system are despicable.

3. Thanks to the massive orgy of credit that surged into the housing markets in the 2003-2006 period, and the guaranteed self-destruction of such activity, 30% of recent home buyers are now under water on their mortgages. The decline will get the blame, but the real culprit was greed and an insane lapse in judgment and due diligence by society as a whole. The guilt is baked into our current financial system and it is impossible to extricate blame from the system of finance, education, mass media, government, public policy and the general awareness level of society as a whole.

4. It looks like the Las Vegas economy, one that boomed more than most in the run up, is facing a tough time during the recent de-leveraging. It will be interesting to see how the gaming and entertainment industries fair when individuals tighten their purse strings. I was there this past weekend and it seemed relatively normal, but I sensed some despair on the part of cab drivers. They all seemed ready to move on. Additionally, likely due to the dollar debasement, foreigners were everywhere. I would say nearly half of the visitors were from another nation.

5. As I have been predicting, the mortgage crisis appears to be moving beyond the sub-prime sphere into more traditional loans. I really see this de-leveraging as an ugly one folks, and the Fed trying to push more credit and debt into the system is no recipe for success. The problem is debt in the first place. You can’t solve the problem with more of the same.

6. Mish asks “Where is all the oil money going?” The answer is rather stunning, but just know, the money is NOT reaching the pockets of ordinary Americans via free market efficiency and unfettered development and exchange. Instead, we are being taxed to fund a global military empire used to ensure that the oil trade keeps rolling along without a hitch. I don’t know about you, but I am growing weary of subsidizing so much BS. What a sham.

Dubai 1990:

Same street in 2007:

Filed under: Politics, Social Mood, Economics, Entertainment, Six Packs