EXCERPT: Most of the large banks have been battered by their own speculative investments.  Speculative from a more traditional banking perspective, that is.     There is even talk now of banks going belly up because of this mess created by the questionable loans and clever repackaging of those sub prime loans by "piggy backing" them on prime loans in these packages for marketing purposes.    A significant part of the problem seems to be...

EXCERPT:    With the scary threat of bank failures on the rise, it is appropriate to consider just which banks might be most at risk.     We explored briefly the major banks' increased exposure in “Big Credit Cramps”.  But what about the small and midsized banks, and other community institutions such as savings and loans, and credit unions?      It appears that there could be some winners in this debacle. ...

EXCERPT: General Motors has offered all of its U.S. hourly rate employees, all 74,000 of them, a buyout plan. If employees sever ties completely with the company, no pension, no health benefits, they could be paid a $140,000 lump sum. The article at CNNMoney.com said that 46,000 of the employees are eligible for retirement right now and will be given pension incentives to do so. Two things come to mind when reading this. First, there are only 74,000 hourly workers left at GM? The once proud...

EXCERPT: My current thinking, based on years of observation and even some study, is that the U$D has been a tool of a noble experiment, spawned toward the end of the Second World War, which has soured over time with experience and the baby bummer generation taking the helm in the person of Bill Clinton and King George the Pampered.        In summary:   The USA was the only major power left standing at the end of WWII.   Toward the end...

EXCERPT:          t should have been predictable, although I have seen no predictions of it.  A Sovereign Wealth Superfund for the Third World.         Hugo Chavez, the leftist President of Venezuela and one of many of Dubya’s ardent fans around the world, proposed Saturday to his allies that they begin withdrawing billions of dollars in international reserves out of U.S. banks.     ...

EXCERPT: First world financial services groups have had the wind knocked out of them by the sub-prime mess, a mess largely of their own making.  Now the developing world is administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as vast foreign holdings of U.S. debt are beginning to be recycled through the so-called sovereign-wealth      The infusion of funds just over the last ten months, according to Morgan Stanely, has amounted to a cool 69 Billion USD.    ...

EXCERPT: Stephen Jen, an economist with Morgan Stanley, monitors 29 sovereign-wealth funds with an aggregate buddle of $2.9 trillion    The UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Authority gets a lot of the attention today because of its huge reserves of US Dollars from its sale of Oil to the world (oil transactions still being denominated in USDs), and the fact that it is investing in our banks.  That fund is at the top of the list with estimated assets of $875 ...

EXCERPT: I've always been concerned about our economy especially with the massive amount of debt we've incurred from this devasting war in Iraq. With the mismanagement of our government from this administration to the wealth accumulated to the Neo con friends of this administration, where are we headed? Here is an article from CNN Money By Grace Wong, CNNMoney.com staff writer: Scramble For Cash
  Devastated by tightening credit markets and the mortgage mess, Wall Street...

EXCERPT: Today I woke up expecting to see an 800-point drop in the DOW. Surprise! The FED jumps in cutting the benchmark FED funds rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3.5 percent Tuesday -- the biggest drop in the overnight interbank lending rate in more than 23 years. Why? Do they keep cutting the rate until the FED is paying to loan money? This is market manipulation in the highest form. Why can the FED manipulate the market but you and I can’t? Is the FED above the...

EXCERPT: by Patricia L Johnson
According to Associated Press reports Japan's Nikkei 225 index dropped 3.9 percent Monday and by Tuesday morning had dropped an additional 4.4 percent to 12,738.31. 
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 5.5% percent Monday and was down an additional 7.2% in Tuesday morning trading.
London's FTSE-100 dropped 5.5%, Germany's DAX 30 dropped 7.2% and France's CAC-40 dropped 6.8%
The U.S. stock markets were closed Monday...