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I posted a similar message a couple of months ago, and we generated quite a few great ideas for stocking up on certain things in case of a major emergency. We have been stocking up on non-perishables and medical supplies. Next will be emergency equipment: flashlights, batteries, candles, soap, tp, trash bags. Any suggestions?

Bond Bubble Hits Manic Stage by Michael Pento, Delta Global Advisors, Inc. | December 12, 2008 Print This week marked the beginning of what I believe is the manic bubble stage in the nearly three decade long Treasury bull market. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Treasury sold $27 billion of three month bills at a discount rate of .005%. That rate is the lowest since the auction began in 1929. On Tuesday, $30 billion of four-week Treasury bills were sold at 0%! Again, the lowest yield ever recorded for that security. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, 41 U.S....

Human nature has a blind spot. We often detect external flaws faster than internal ones—seeing the speck in our neighbor’s eye sooner than the beam in our own, to use the biblical metaphor. This same tendency exists at the national level. Such blindness can be fatal, as Ralph Waldo Emerson warned when he wrote, “A nation never falls but by suicide.” In America today, we readily perceive the dangers posed by international terrorism, hostile foreign regimes, uncontrolled immigration, the global narco-gangsters, etc. It is the threat within that seems to be off the radar screen. The fall of Rome and...

I just wrote about the albatross about to form involving the Treasury Bond and the bailout(s). The Treasury Bond is at record levels and only giving an interest rate of 2.67% on the ten year benchmark. At the same time, we are trying to borrow several trillion Dollars. In other words, we are asking debtors to lend us several trillion dollars even though they would only get 2.67%, at least currently, as their rate. The Treasury bond, especially the ten year, is the pre cursor to most long term rates like mortgages, car loans, student loans, etc. so it's uncontrolled...

US Treasury 10-yr CDS hits record high Mon, Dec 1 2008, 11:34 GMT http://www.afxnews.com LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The spread or risk premium on 10-year U.S. Treasury credit default swaps hit a record high on Monday, extending a recent trend as market participants continued to fret about the scale of the government's financial rescue programmes. Ten-year U.S. Treasury CDS widened to 68.4 basis points from Friday's close of 60 basis points, according to credit data company CMA DataVision. Five-year Treasury CDS widened to 52.5 basis points from 46 basis points at Friday's close, it said. (Reporting by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

It has been an incredible year loaded with surprises but I think that the next few years will surprise even more. Whenever I feel certain about something coming, I ‘m glad to put it in print. In 2004, I had successfully forecast many economic events such as the housing bubble popping and the credit crisis among other events. Current economic conditions and political outcomes have laid the groundwork for more events that we should be prepared for. All of these events combine to create a “Financial Vortex” that will hit us in the coming years. First of all, be aware...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama signaled on Saturday that he would pursue a far more ambitious plan of spending and tax cuts than anything he outlined on the campaign trail, setting the tone for a recovery effort that could absorb and define much of his term. In the Democrats’ weekly radio address, Mr. Obama said he would direct his economic team to craft a two-year stimulus plan with the goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs. He said it would be “a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face.” Mr. Obama said he hoped to sign the...

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may a point teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation...

Food is expensive, gas remains stubbornly high and winter's big heating bills are coming. Since loans are tough to get and our retirement funds are shrinking fast as the stock market crashes, we thought we'd share some old-fashioned penny-pinching tips. Some come from readers who responded to a business reporter's request for suggestions. Others come from the misers on our staff. And a few come from rules our mothers taught us or hints we've read over the years. Of course, one person's "don't need that" is another's "can't live without" (we didn't suggest cutting out the $4 latte). If some...

Okay, so we are looking at a few years of outright democrat control of the WH, Senate and House. The prospects for Americans is rather dour on the whole but there are ways to prosper and build "something" for the future. I fully expect people to jump on and complain about outright government confiscation of wealth and compensation and whatever else they need to say but there are other places to rant about that. What I would like to start a discussion on is how people can make money for themselves, their families and the causes that they choose to...