“The Greater Depression Has Started” – Comparing 1930s & Today – J.C.
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Government Will Owe More Money Than Entire Economy Produces – G.G.
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Items from Professor Preponomics:
US News
The $1 Trillion Short Underlying Stocks’ Spring Awakening (Bloomberg) Excerpt: “Amid its biggest about-face in nine decades, a funny thing has happened in the U.S. stock market, where rather than loosen their grip bears have grown ever-more impassioned.”
Obama Administration Pushes Banks to Make Home Loans to People with Weaker Credit (The Washington Post) Excerpt: “The Obama administration is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.”
The Former CFO of Enron Warned a Group of Execs that Large US Companies are Doing the Same Things He Did (Business Insider) Excerpt: “He said he knowingly engaged in numerous transactions that were designed to mislead investors by hiding debt in special purpose entities, etc.”
The Fed Can’t Save Us (Mises) Excerpt: “It is attempting to pull off a magic trick whereby it can keep all of the “benefits” of its earlier rounds of monetary expansion (i.e., “quantitative easing” or “QE”) while removing the artificial stimulus of ultra-low interest rates.”
US Weakens Retirement Advice Rule, Responding to Industry (Reuters) Excerpt: “Unlike the draft proposal, the final rule does not restrict brokers from pushing proprietary products, splitting revenue with creators of funds they promote, or recommending risky, high-fee investments in alternative assets and certain annuities.”
International News
Under 40? Five Charts that Show Why You’re a Victim of the Housing Crisis (The Telegraph) Excerpt: “Britain’s growing army of tenants now spend up to a third of their disposable income on rent, according to official figures which lay bare the extent of the UK’s housing crisis.”
Personal Economics and Household Finance
Why You Need to Turn Paper Statements Back On (Clark Howard) Excerpt: “…the best way to prove what funds you had on deposit in the event of a catastrophic data breach is with hard copy paper statements.”
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