recession...

Consumers

HELLO: ANYBODY HOME?
Paradigm intel points to China and OPEC.
Both are contributing to their own economic downfall.

Fed Emergency intervention.
GLOBAL MARKETS-US rate cut eases slide in stocks, bonds surge
Feds cannot control the monetary system or curency markets, market forces are bigger than the combined "feds" in Europe and USA.

This is not a World market problem, meaning part of the world isn't participating, China.
China has a liquidity surplus...While Europe and USA has a liquidity shortage??

If this continues it will ruin/trash/crush Chinas Olympics dreams. Tourism will crash in a recessionary
environment. Chinese confused perspective


OIL $100 per bbl, Opec is shooting its self in the foot.
Saudi Arabia is facing terrible inflation and Milk boycott.Saudi Inflation = oil $100 BBL

Most know why there is a bread shortage in Pakistan, including the poor. Smugglers and hoarders, capitalizing on record global wheat prices, have found it more profitable to send wheat and flour abroad than to meet domestic needs at home.


Gold $800 an oz up from $400 a few years ago.
Gold prices have gone through the ceiling by striking an all-time high of $980 per ounce this week, and smashing a 28-year record. Experts attribute this to oil prices breaching the $100 per barrel mark, a weak US dollar, political instability in Pakistan following the assassination of the country's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, as well as cold weather which has raised demand for heating fuel.

"Each market reacts to news as it happens, and gold is always trading, wherever the sun shines as the earth turns," explained Hani Milad, secretary-general of the Jewellery Division at the Egyptian Association of Chamber of Commerce. "Prices are set and regularly re-set by the ever-changing supply and demand, input by investors, central banks, governments, miners, jewellers, dealers, and others who trade in gold almost daily." Although gold as money is not a part of daily life, every major nation holds gold as a fiscal insurance policy.

The value of gold during the first trading week of 2008 was $866.90 per ounce, after rising by 30 per cent last year to reach about $630 per ounce. Two years ago, gold was selling for less than $550 an ounce and cost $350 per ounce five years ago. The highest record for gold in recent history was in 1980 when it cost $850 an ounce, after investors rushed to buy the precious metal in response to high inflation sparked by soaring oil prices amid the Iranian Revolution.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/881/ec1.htm

http://snipurl.com/1y6a2


The speculative bubble in the art market reaches its peak in November 2007 [Jan 08]

The Financial Times reports that Japanese inflation rates, which have traditionally been very low by international standards, doubled between November and December 2007

Smell the inflation building?

I would be taking my bond capital gain profits and
( as interest rates go down the value of older bonds, paying a higher rate go up in principal,
as intrest rates go up older bond principal values go down as they pay the older lower rates, BOND PRINCIPAL GOES IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF THE INTEREST RATE MOVE. INTREST RATE UP, BOND PRINCIPAL DOWN...... INTEREST RATES DOWN, BOND PRINCIPLE GOES UP )
switching to investments with a inflation hedge.
Utilities, commodity related stocks etc.

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Two excellent reads:
Europe and the West are trying to improve short term liquidity.Expand.
( Linked to sub-prime loans, and ? )
The cost to borrow in euros plunged after the European Central Bank added an unprecedented $500 billion to the banking system as part of a global effort to ease credit-market gridlock through year-end.

China is trying to curb "excessive liquidity".Contract.
The Chinese government, which spent 2007 trying to prevent the country's economy overheating, caught investors on the hop this week with the sixth interest rate rise of the year, adding to indications that it will intensify its efforts to cool the economy in the coming 12 months.

They both speak of a 7 yr, time frame.

The biggest concerted effort by central banks in six years to restore confidence in global money markets is showing little sign of success. SOURCE:

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China's Economic view of USA.

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NEW YORK (AP) -- Wachovia Capital markets analyst Douglas Sipkin on Monday lowered his fourth-quarter estimate for Merrill Lynch & Co., forecasting a loss on further expected writedowns of collateralized debt obligations.
Dec. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Merrill Lynch & Co. will receive a cash infusion of as much as $6.2 billion from Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte. and Davis Selected Advisors LP. Merrill Lynch & Co., reeling from the biggest loss in its 93-year history, will receive a cash infusion of as much as $6.2 billion from Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte. and Davis Selected Advisors LP.

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Who is draining liquidity?
"CPI is going to be very important. The Fed has injected massive amounts of liquidity and they don't seem to be getting any major impact. We still have a credit crunch," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont.

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Paradigm Intel, and inductive reasoning indicates the possibility of a Global monetary cash flow problem. Currently focused on short term liquidity, it has the momentum to spread.
China is heavy and the West & Europe are short?

$100 bbl oil is accumulating significant economic pain world wide.

A publication by GIMF—an analysis of the global strategy of Al-Qaeda—is even more lucid. Under the title "Al-Qaeda's War is Economic not Military," wonders if there have been any strange or unusual transactions by world State players.

All of this points to at least a recession. And maybe some manipulation, intentional or not.

USA DOESN'T KNOW WHAT IS CAUSING THE LIQUIDITY PROBLEM?

Possibilities:
1) Large country pulling funds. ( switching to other reserve currencys, or Gold )
2) Sub-prime some how affecting money markets ( Derivatives )
3) Derivatives based on Money Market rates: crashing?
4) Asymmetrical warfare.
5) Market cycle?
Any other explanations? comment please.

Stock market shaping up for severe bruising.

Gerald
Series 7 & 13
Its going to get very bumpy


Pumping out the sub-prime paper with a AAA wrapper
is an criminal event, they were giving loans under false pretenses,
lying about income, values, appraisals, some should be prosecuted,
they made Billions in a organized criminal enterprise.
Lack of supervision or checks and balances.

The subPrime problem is just the tip of the Iceberg.
The mounting bad debt from poor standards and practices
is still to come, the Credit Card companys have been engaged in
loan sharking using Credit Cards, whom do you think would agree to
33% interest rates? ( They incorporated in states without " consumer rights laws", no linit on interest charges, and claim other states Usury laws don't apply to them. )
Even higher in some circumstances, USURY.
The MOB only broke your leg, these guys
got the bankruptcy laws changed ( Lobbyists )
so when they can't pay the 33% vig.
They attach property/homes etc.
You can't even escape these criminal loan sharks in bankruptcy.
The Mafia didn't even have it this good, and these bad loans have to surface
sooner or later.

And I hope the criminal investigations. We know who's greed triggered this debacle.

G
The Criminal credit card companys threaten National security."CounterTerrorism Blog."

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How are the credit card co.s contributing to the bad Debt debacle?
Over the past year, the consumer banking industry has come under increased scrutiny in Washington for interest-rate hikes, questionable legal practices, and debt-collection procedures. And when bank representatives appear before Congress, they often repeat the same message: Whatever their practices, their consumers agreed to them....

And it's not as if financial institutions are scrambling to draw your attention to the contracts. In some cases, consumers have to blindly agree to a credit-card holder's agreement when applying for a card; and only get a chance to look at it when they receive it, their new card, and a bevy of inserts in the mail sometime later.

Figuring out what it all means can be difficult. Interest rates can be calculated in a variety of ways, and the ultimate effects of certain clauses aren't always clear. "It's getting to the point where it's like opening up the guts of a Dell and a Mac and asking to choose based on that," says Kathleen Keest, senior policy counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending.

But what you don't know can hurt you: You may assume you have rights that you've actually signed away, and knowing what the rules are now can save you major financial problems later on.

To help, we're magnifying the small print. Here is a by-no-means-comprehensive list of common clauses to be aware of before signing up for that next credit card or checking account:....

Interest rates can increase, and in some cases, interest may be charged on the portion of your bill you already paid. And then you get hit with fees: late fees and over-the-limit fees can exceed the amount you owe.....

Many can change anytime, for any reason. "Even though creditors can stipulate the terms, they still insert a clause that says no matter what else is in the contract, we can change the provisions anytime for any reason," says Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America. "[Credit-card agreements] are the single worst piece of consumer disclosure I've seen in 25 years of consumer work."....

SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor.

Any one see a higher interest rate on CC above 33% I've seen advertised: please add in comments.

G

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