While Congress fiddles around deciding who they are going to bailout with our $700B bailout, the Federal Reserve has quietly put through a $2 trillion dollar bailout of their own- and they aren’t telling us what they’re doing with it:  [Thanks L!] Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700…
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"The 19th-century version of containers manufactured in China and bound for Wal-Mart consisted of produce from farmers in the American Midwest." A distant mirror indeed.  Remember that bit about Northern Rock having been the first British bank failure in 141 years?   Many thanks to Doomer V for this dig.  Doom rarely finds American academic historians helpful in putting the present crisis in perspective, but this guy from Virginia’s W&M recently hit one out of the park.[1] I’ve often reflected on how the American Century (1945 – ????) has been unfolding much as did the British one (1815 – 1914). …
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People develop a huge emotional attachment to their houses.  When threatened with a loss of a home to foreclosure, people often then are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to save it.  Knowing the emotional vulnerability of these folks, there are scammers who will come in and promise to "rescue" them, when the intent is to take them to the cleaners. The following documentary is a little long (95 minutes) but does a great job of explaining the types of scams that are common in the "foreclosure rescue" business.  It also explains legitimate possibilities for folks in this situation. The…
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