If you didn’t think there was a wink and a nod relationship between large banks and the feds, the “Volcker Rule” should serve as an acknowledgment. Because lending and credit is so crucial to the economy, financial institutions know the government will backstop them during crisis mode in the industry.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner discusses the burdens of his position, why he felt it was necessary to bailout the financial system and the paternal role taken by the federal government:

The question is, can the Fed take enough money out of the economy without sending us back into a severe recession, or will the excess money lead to high inflation. Personally, I’m predicting some pretty vicious stagflation is coming our way.

This summer, the IRS rewarded Nicolas Cage for his “efforts” with a $6 million tax lien on his New Orleans’ properties for unpaid taxes. So the IRS, lead by tax cheat Timothy Geithner, is cracking down on Nicolas Cage for unpaid taxes. How ironic. Or perhaps, “how fitting” would be a better way to put it. After all, I think Tim Geithner, our spend-happy congress, the Federal Reserve, George Bush and Barack Obama can give Nicolas Cage a run for his money (what little is left of it) when it comes to irresponsible spending. Honestly, look at what our government has been doing:

As of today, few things would be less appealing in your portfolio then dollars. As the Federal Reserve pours liquid-ity into the economy through TARP, stimulus and bailouts, and the Federal Government runs record deficits, interest rates stay artificially low. Depressingly low. In fact, a quick surf of Bankrate.com tells me the highest yielding money market account currently available (MMA) is 1.81%, while the average yield comes in at a whopping 1.113%. (1) That means if a person has $20,000 of hard earned money stuffed away in a MMA, he or she will earn roughly $30/month in taxed income. Nice.

Gold bullion futures touched a record high $1,045 in yesterday’s trading session in New York. If you believe in stock indexes breaking through resistance points, this may be just that for bullion.

Last time, I talked about one of the titans of modern economics, Anna Schwartz, who was highly critical of both the Bush and Obama administrations in their handling of monetary policy.  Recently, I caught a comprehensive interview with another such person, Paul Samuelson, of the famous Stolper-Samuelson theorem, which governs a great deal of the [...]

Not so fast there slick. Up and down swings are extremely common, recession or not. Bear market rallies were actually quite common in the Great Depression.

Widely hailed as good news, housing starts increased 17.2% in May to annual adjusted rate of 532,000. This certainly means the real estate market and thus the economy are heading back in the right direction. Not so fast there slick. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 2009, according to Bloomberg, there were 19 million vacant houses in the United States!

Social costs are not being reduced by the bailout, they’re being dispersed: to the taxpayer, to everyone who earns or saves the U.S. dollar and to unborn generations of Americans.