Late in the fall of 1988 the accounting firm, Coopers & Lybrand (C&L), won a competitive award to construct a computer system that collected the monthly security and loan information relating to Ginnie Mae’s mortgage-backed security program. As a C&L consultant with a math major and a Wharton M.B.A., I was put in charge of testing the system as it was being developed.

Where is Howard Beale when we need him?  Two years into the Greatest Recession Since the Great Depression (GRSGD) and our financial leaders are still telling us that we need to be patient while waiting for our economic recovery.

Mortgage debt in the United States (currently more than $10 trillion) has grown to the point that it is nearly the same size as our national debt (in fact, a few years ago, U.S. mortgage debt actually successfully passed our national debt), and it has only been as a result of the new Administration’s debt spending that our national debt has regained the lead in the race to see which can account for the highest amount of our economic debt.

Peter Schiff just lost the Republican nod for US Senator in Connecticut. If someone ever embodied the antithesis to the nation’s current approach, it is Schiff.

A few days ago a friend of mine asked me what I would say in an open letter to a group of Independents if they asked me what I thought of the financial reform bill that is currently being considered in Washington. The following is my open letter response to those Independents:

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:

Many people wonder what makes gold special as a store of value. When inflation fears set in, people flock to gold. One answer is that the dollar used to be backed by gold. An even better answer I will leave to Judy Shelton, an economist and director of the National Endowment for Democracy:

The Group of 20 (G20) met in Scotland over the weekend, bringing together central bankers and financiers of nineteen countries, and the European Union (EU). The collection of nations constitute 80% of world trade and two-thirds of the world’s population. (1) Discussions of “re-balancing” the world economy have taken place over the last few months by members of the G20; those sentiments continued this weekend in St. Andrews, but apparently only in general terms. (2)

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.