American Financial Dream Deferred: How the U.S. is Mirroring the Japanese Lost Decade after the Heisei Boom.
This weekend I decided to take a trip to a couple of local stores to pick up some food that didn’t involve turkey so I wouldn’t be fatigued of eating the same thing for the entire week. A chain grocery store had about five people on a Sunday when it typically would have many more. [...]
Credit Card Monopoly: Top 5 Issuers Hold $550 Billion in Credit Card Debt Taking up over 60 Percent of the Entire Credit Card Market.
As Americans rush out to shopping centers around the country on Black Friday many retail outlets have their fingers crossed that consumers will spend money that is clearly not on their balance sheet. The average American is maxed out. In fact, the typical American family has been subsidizing a decade of stagnant wages with credit [...]
13 Million Negative Equity Homeowners and Negative Equity FDIC: The Shackles of Debt Leverage on the American Economy. FDIC $8.2 Billion in the red with 552 Troubled Banks on the Revised List.
The third quarter was devastating for banks and homeowners. To show the growing divide between Wall Street and the American economy, the FDIC just released its third quarter banking profile. The FDIC fund is not only broke, it is now in the red to the sum of $8.2 billion. We’ve been warning that the fund [...]
FDIC Broke and Selling Real Estate: How $13 Trillion in Assets is Protected by no Deposit Insurance Fund. FDIC Selling Properties to Replenish Fund and Collecting Early Fees.
The FDIC, that enigmatic seal of security on your bank entrance, is virtually bankrupt. The FDIC provides deposit insurance to over 8,000 banks that collectively hold $13 trillion in assets. We can question what those assets are really worth since many of these institutions hold $3 trillion in commercial real estate loans and defaulting residential [...]
Commercial Real Estate Reality Check: 2007 Commercial Real Estate Valued at $6.5 Trillion with $3.5 trillion loans. Today, Commercial Real Estate Valued at $3.5 Trillion with $3.5 Trillion in Loans. Can you spot the Problem?
Commercial real estate is dealing with the neutron bomb effect. The buildings still stand but the inside is gutted as if vultures had devoured a carcass. What we are seeing, like in many other sectors of our economy, is a distinction between reality based economics and the inflated prices of Wall Street. If we look [...]
10 States with Underemployment Rates of 20+ Percent. Manufacturing Sector Employs Same Number of Workers that we did in 1940.
The average American family must look at the current stock market rally as some kind of cruel joke. We have people anxiously waiting for government funds or paychecks to clear at the end of the month so they can wait outside of a Wal-Mart shopping center at midnight to buy food once their funds clear. [...]
Federal Government Budget Deficit in October is Three Times the Annual Budget Deficits of the Banana Republic of California.
California has been the poster child of ineffective state government. Bickering politicians, constant spending, and budget deficits that baffle the economic bottom line. But California isn’t alone in this spend more than you earn reality. Last year, California had to patch up $60 billion in budget deficits. A large and historical sum no doubt. Yet [...]
Lining up at Midnight at Wal-Mart to buy Food is part of the new Recovery. Banks offering Mattress Interest Rates. The Invisible Recovery Outside of Wall Street.
There seems to be a growing divide in the current U.S. economy. On the one hand, you have the financial sector swimming in their bailout-induced profits like a modern day Scrooge Mcduck. In their circles, it appears as if the recession is over. On the other hand, you have average Americans seeing access to credit [...]
The Balance Sheet Recession: $4.2 Trillion Lost in Residential Real Estate Value. Yet Mortgage Debt Down by $140 Billion.
What we are experiencing is a balance sheet recession. The reality of our current economic funk is highlighted by the growing unemployment rate and the diminishing purchasing power of many Americans. What is going to make this economic crisis drag out like a painful Hollywood divorce is the inability to reconcile the past with our [...]
Employment Engineering: Firing those who Work with Their Hands. Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate Jobs Protected by Bailout Structure. Other Sectors Dealing with Depression Trends.
It is hard to imagine why Wall Street would cheer a 10.2 percent official unemployment rate since the stock market actually ended the day higher after this dismal news. Since the start of the recession, 8 million people have lost their jobs. A total of approximately 27 million people are unemployed, underemployed, or have given [...]
