The Rest of Da Iceberg?

The Next Financial Tsunami is Breaking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, US Mortgage Debt... and US Fed and US Dollar?

More than a rumor?

A rumor is swirling around the Internet that an inglorious end to the U.S. economy is imminent. [...] On March 18, 2008, a “closed door” session of Congress was held for only the fourth time in history. According to House Rule XVII, clause 9, it is forbidden for members of the U.S. House of Representatives to reveal the discussions held behind those doors. The penalty for leaking such information includes loss of seniority, fines, reprimand, censure or expulsion. [...] According to the Australia.TO newspaper, as reported in the May 2008 Last Trumpet Newsletter (LTM), several congressmen were so incensed about what was discussed behind those doors that they were compelled to leak the contents of the meeting. Following is what is rumored to have been discussed:

Imminent collapse of the U.S. economy by September 2008; imminent collapse of the U.S. Government finances by February 2009; possibility of civil war within the U.S. resulting from the collapse; detainment of “insurgent U.S. citizens” in anticipation of their moving against the government; the potential for violent action taken by citizens against members of Congress due to the collapses; the merger of the U.S. economy with those of Canada and Mexico as a solution to the collapse; the introduction of a new tri-national currency called the “AMERO” as another economic solution.

Needless to say, that’s a lot of information to process. Unfortunately none of it can be verified and it essentially falls under the category of rumor and as such must be treated as suspect. [...] The fact that many people even consider these stories as being potentially true is revealing of the mindset of Americans today: they are nervous about the economy, scared over high oil and gas prices and none too happy over the housing price deflation. (by Clif Droke)

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Bush says he wants $70 billion for the war next year and $770 million in food aid, mostly for Africa. Bush, and the Federal Reserve, are breaking our American dollar, our economy and our backs. They continue to print up nonexistent money and the American people get to pay the interest on this money that the government borrows.
The Federal Reserve is not "federal," but a privately owned bank that Woodrow Wilson regrettably endorsed during his presidency in 1913. I do not find the Depression suffered in the 1930s ironic and there is always a possibility for another one. Americans live on credit, just like their government, away from the principle of spending only what they have and delaying gratification for what they want. Our country is paying the price, and we have to pray we do not further lose our national sovereignty. Google the Amero dollar and the North American Union.
As we get our fix at Wal-Mart or the evening sports, our country is going in a direction that only an asleep populace allows. It takes awake people to change a molded course. Read Ron Paul's "The Revolution: A Manifesto" regarding the principles we need back: individual liberty, sound money, the Constitution and the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers.

~Leah Gerten, Fallbrook, NCTimes.com

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In other news: A 40-year-old former substitute teacher was caught red-handed surfing the web for porn in the presence of her 7th grade students on the classroom computer. Julie Amero of Windham Connecticut said that it was not her fault but that it was pop-ups from spyware present on the classroom computers prior to the teachers arrival.

The jury didn't believe that Amero was just the victim of spyware and convicted her of four counts of endangering a child. Each count could nab her a 10-year sentence.

$PPNAFTANAU - Good for you!

In 1999, economist Herbert G. Grubel of the Fraser institute wrote a paper entitled, "The Case for the Amero," presenting the first arguments in print that a North American currency should be created on the model of the euro in the European Union as a replacement for the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso.

WND reported the third SPP summit, held last August in Montebello, Quebec, involved a series of closed-door meetings attended only by the three state heads, the cabinet members in attendance, the SPP trilateral bureaucrats assigned to head the 20 working groups established under the SPP and the NACC business leaders.

Next Monday and Tuesday, President Bush will meet in New Orleans with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Harper.

The White House has changed the name of the meeting from the "Fourth SPP Annual Summit" to simply the "North American Leaders' Summit."

Read the whole WND article:
"Makeover urged for 'North American Union' effort"

Follow Warren Buffett, Jim Rogers ... and Gisele Bundchen

Gisele Bundchen wants to remain the world's richest model and is insisting that she be paid in almost any currency but the U.S. dollar.

Like billionaire investors Warren Buffett and Bill Gross, the Brazilian supermodel, who Forbes magazine says earns more than anyone in her industry, is at the top of a growing list of rich people who have concluded that the currency can only depreciate because Americans led by President George W. Bush are living beyond their means. [...] Analysts in a Bloomberg survey expect the dollar to strengthen in coming months as stronger-than-forecast reports suggest U.S. consumers will keep the economy out of recession. Payrolls grew by 166,000 in October, double the median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg survey.

The dollar will rise to $1.43 per euro this year and $1.35 by the end of 2008, according to the median estimate in the survey.

"So far the data has shown the U.S. economy may not be slowing to the extent the majority of the market had expected,'' said Omer Esiner, an analyst at currency-trading company Ruesch International Inc. in Washington who expects the U.S. currency to strengthen to as much as $1.38 per euro. "That could temper policy easing down the road and lend support for the dollar.''

Buffett, whom Forbes in April ranked as the world's third- richest person behind Bill Gates and Carlos Slim, told reporters in South Korea last month that he is bearish on the U.S. currency. "We still are negative on the dollar relative to most major currencies, so we bought stocks in companies that earn their money in other currencies,'' Buffett said Oct. 25. Buffett, 77, is chairman of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Jim Rogers, a former partner of investor George Soros, said last month he's selling his house and all his possessions in the U.S. currency to buy China's yuan.

"The dollar is collapsing,'' Rogers said last week in an interview. "I'm moving to Asia because moving to Asia now is like moving to New York in 1907 or London in 1807. It's the wave of the future.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Making Things Worse for the US Currency

The world's largest financial organizations have already taken big hits – quietly, for the moment – but the collapse of the subprime sector really is hurting, and we are seeing things that just shouldn't happen in a well-ordered financial world.

Fund managers are not producing credible fund valuations; they have frozen values using old prices, and are forbidding the normal result, which is investors piling through the exits.

No-one can price mortgage-backed derivatives at the moment, and no-one really knows how the underwriters of credit default swaps are pricing the insurance time-bomb they're sitting on. These horrible investments are in many cases worth nothing, and in the case of credit-default swaps, less than nothing.

The current lull might prove an opportunity for the prospective gold buyer. Gold has not yet moved up; in fact, it has dipped a little as stretched investment funds have sold whatever they can to raise cash and reduce their margin calls.

Nor can any serious comment on the gathering storm fail to remark on the apparent "flight to quality" which on Monday last week saw US Treasury bonds put in their strongest day since Black Monday 1987.

US Treasury bonds are part of the fast-growing and utterly irredeemable $9 trillion public debt now outstanding in the United States. The US trade deficit was also on record-breaking form again last month. Only a few short weeks ago these dreadful statistics drove the US Dollar to record lows against a basket of major world currencies.

Only a lack of imagination would allow investors to think suddenly of the US Dollar as today's "quality" refuge. Any respite for the Dollar will surely be temporary; indeed, the bounce we saw during the sharpest stock-market losses so far may have simply been short-covering by Dollar bears (of which there are plenty) rather than fresh buying of “quality”.

Everything that has just happened in fact makes things worse for the US currency.

from "The Gathering Storm" by Paul Tustain