10 YEARS LATER – NO LESSONS LEARNED

“A variety of investors provided capital to financial companies, with which they made irresponsible loans and took excessive risks. These activities resulted in real losses, which have largely wiped out the shareholder equity of the companies. But behind that shareholder equity is bondholder money, and so much of it that neither depositors of the institution nor the public ever need to take a penny of losses. Citigroup, for example, has $2 trillion in assets, but also has $600 billion owed to its own bondholders. From an ethical perspective, the lenders who took the risk to finance the activities of these companies are the ones that should directly bear the cost of the losses.”John Hussman – May 2009

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Wall Street/Fed/Treasury created financial disaster of 2008/2009. What should have happened was an orderly liquidation of the criminal Wall Street banks who committed the greatest control fraud in world history and the disposition of their good assets to non-criminal banks who did not recklessly leverage their assets by 30 to 1, while fraudulently issuing worthless loans to deadbeats and criminals. But we know that did not happen.

You, the taxpayer, bailed the criminal bankers out and have been screwed for the last decade with negative real interest rates and stagnant real wages, while the Wall Street scum have raked in risk free billions in profits provided by their captured puppets at the Federal Reserve. The criminal CEOs and their executive teams of henchmen have rewarded themselves with billions in bonuses while risk averse grandmas “earn” .10% on their money market accounts while acquiring a taste for Fancy Feast savory salmon cat food.

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LAST SHALL BE FIRST & FIRST SHALL BE LAST

The momentum crowd piled into Japanese and Emerging Market stocks in 2013. The MSM dutifully bashed gold at year end, declaring it dead as an investment after an uninterrupted 12 year bull market, which they missed. After one month, it seems the momentum crowd has a problem and investors in the barbarous relic may not be so stupid after all. You also may be paying more for your ethanol this year, as corn prices are rising. But at least you can eat bread, as wheat prices have plunged.

I wonder if that bloviating fat ass Long Island lawyer, pretending to be a an investing guru, Barry Ritholtz missed the little gold rally? He missed the 1st twelve years of the gold bull market, but spent 2013 doing a victory dance about finally being right. He was probably too busy shilling his latest book, conference, or investment firm to notice the gold rally.