Free Republic

Imminent Big Bank Death Spiral Means Gold Price Will Sky Rocket Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2010 Oct 27, 2010 - 04:03 PM By: Jim Willie CB The mortgage & foreclosure scandal runs so deep that ordinary observers can conclude the US financial foundation is laced with a cancer detectable by ordinary people. The metastasis is visible from the distribution of mortgage bonds into the commercial paper market, money market funds, the bank balance sheets, pension funds under management, foreign central banks, and countless financial funds across the globe. Some primary features of the cancerous tissue material are mortgage bond fraud,...

As the U.S. fi nancial crisis unfolded in the fall of 2008, policymakers rushed to provide emergency support to the fi nancial system, whose provisioning of credit is the lifeblood of any economy. In the months and years to come, the revival of the fi nancial system will be critical to the magnitude of the economic recovery, and therefore infl uential to the performance of various asset classes. Rapid turnaround as conditions improve There is no question that the fi nancial system is in dramatically better shape than one year ago, with credit markets coming off life support and demonstrating...

I don't know if it's safe to copy this newsletter, but the excerpt below pretty much sums it up. "Bottom line: The first quarter brought the greatest credit collapse of all time."

State transportation officials are poised to issue billions of dollars in debt to help speed road construction, a move that will keep Dallas-area projects on schedule for now but will do little to shore up the state's long-term road-funding crisis. The Texas Department of Transportation will likely begin issuing $1.5 billion in bonds within 60 days, pending the recovery of the nation's upended credit markets, and is taking steps to borrow another $6.4 billion over the next few years. Historic turmoil in the credit markets is already costing the department hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra interest payments each...

NEW YORK - The credit markets finally got a bailout bill, but the stranglehold hasn't let up — a troubling sign that lenders and investors believe the package will only be a baby step in the long road to economic recovery. The credit markets, where companies go to get cash loans, have seized up since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and in anticipation of the $700 billion plan initially voted down by the House. The House passed a revised version of it Friday following the Senate's approval earlier this week, but anxiety about its effectiveness kept demand for...

Oil prices tumbled more than $6 a barrel Monday, briefly slipping below the $100 level as traders bet that global demand for petroleum products will keep falling despite a planned $700 billion U.S. financial bailout. A stronger dollar also weighed on crude prices as investors who bought oil and other commodities as a hedge against inflation sold their contracts. Light, sweet crude for November delivery fell as low as $99.80 a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before edging up slightly to $100.28, down $6.61. The contract fell Friday $1.13 to settle at $106.89. Crude has...