Right now, however the Fed is on record that they will start monetizing debt and already basically doubled the monetary base. Velocity is still low and many banks aren’t lending, but still, with that kind of monetary expansion, there’s no reason to expect gold prices won’t continue to rise… be it to $1500 or beyond.

Existing home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, dropped 27.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 million units in July from a downwardly revised 5.26 million in June, and are 25.5 percent below the 5.14 million-unit level in July 2009.

In our continuing series on the ever-present and exponentially accelerating cultural decay of the West, we now move from the Justin Bieber mania and plastic surgery to, you guessed it: Kids on leashes! Yes they make such things so you don’t even need to retrofit your dog leash for said purpose. Amazon.com has a delightful [...]

My take is we should remember that it was Fannie Mae who started the whole securitization craze in an insane push for more home ownership and as Peter Schiff put it, “[created] a conflict of interest between the real estate market and mortgage market… [and] has corrupted an industry in which the availability and cost of credit are of central economic importance.” (Crash Proof, pg. 126) And it was that securitization, along with the massive influx of capital made avaible by the Federal Reserve, that were the primary causes of the housing boom and subsequent housing bust. In the end, phasing out these institutions, or at least reducing their role in the economy is the right step to take. Remember, the best way for there to be “affordable housing” is for housing to stay affordable. Fannie’s and Freddie’s incentives for people to take out more loans and drive up housing prices accomplishes the exact opposite.

Dean is right about the public option; it is unpopular and it should be. Obama is now trying to defend it in the courts as a tax even though he denied it was a tax for over a year! A poll by the Progressive Campaign Change Committee found that while people favored the public option 59% to 31%, people opposed the individual mandate without a public option 56% to 33%. According to Rassmussen, a slight majority actually supports health reform now. However, this is after Obama launched a $700,000 ad campaign (taxpayer financed) to “correct the record” after the bill had already been passed. Back in September, 56% of people opposed it.

Rand Paul just cannot catch a break in the media. It all started after his primary victory over Trey Grayson when he told Rachel Maddow he philosophically disagreed with one out of the 10 titles to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he was pretty much tarred and feathered constantly for an entire week of 24 hour news cycles.

Barack Obama…….4,090,000
Justin Bieber………124,000,000

Yes that’s one hundred twenty four million monthly searches, 3100% more than the president during a major global recession. It shouldn’t be long now…

He knows nothing about economics whatsoever, but he’s entertaining to listen to. And he’s certainly right about one thing: it is an absolute joke that personal finance, basic accounting and basic economics are not part of the typical high school curriculum:

Today however, the Obama administration is facing lawsuits from 21 states over the mandate. So how do they defend it? Under the taxing powers of Congress of course.

A long Japanese-like malaise, very possibly a prolonged 70’s style stagflation and a slow downward spiral of a Britain-esque imperial demise is what I see on the horizon. Unfortunately, I almost hope for that since an all out Rome style collapse is within the realm of possibility.