Amen bro Jeff ...

Did you hear Cramer losing it because loose and cheap credit is drying up for guys like him who shuffle arround borrowed money (which is what deratives are) to keep their facade of riches from falling like the houses of cards they are? ... He called Fed Chief Bernanke an academic because he didn't do what he said he would do, that being printing money and dropping it out of helicopters if he had to to keep the economy up, as if flooding the credit market (including Fed equivalents globally) with another 1/2 trillion wasn't bad enuf to make the dollar weaker + The Fed is taking under concideration what would happen if China made good its threat to dump the trillion and a half dollars there holding right now if our Senate don't stop with the trade tariff threats) ... It's amazing how the once all powerful USA has in less than 60 years been reduced to trying to pursuade China into keeping up the buying of our now really useless T-Bills if China wants to continue in it's economic growth, by the American consumer's continued spending on excesses at Wal-Mart ...

Trouble is, and the world knows it, the American consumer has nothing else to sell in order to buy because the Home Equity fiasco is now over, and now most Americans are just plain spending credit card debt ... It's a powerfully ugly scenario when both the government, and the people, are living on the strength of continued credit ... We surely as a nation have become a mansion built on sand ... Then Cramer's also screaming for the Fed to lower interest rates, but somehow everytime that's done it makes Treasury Bills go south too! ... There's no way out anymore, it's like everytime a new leak spings in the dike it's bigger
and there aren't anymore solutions ... It's like watching a financial equivalent of what happend to New Orleans,
the greater majority can't get out, and those that could
had to leave the bulk of their amassed belongings behind ...

There are now bubbles in the pot ... The American dream is escalating into the American scream for both saved and unsaved who fit the passage below ...

Gal.6
[7] Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
[8] For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ...


Wall street types love analysis, the above scripture is the final analysis of where we are now ...

Just a heads up again...

Commercial Paper Roils Borrowers With $550 Billion Coming Due


By Mark Pittman

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Ottimo Funding LLC, whose name is Italian for ``excellent,'' has the highest possible credit rating and doesn't own subprime mortgage bonds. That made no difference to investors who refused to buy Ottimo's $3 billion of short-term debt this month as losses on home loans to risky borrowers infect the global credit markets.

``It's pretty much a straight contagion,'' said George Marshman, chief investment officer of Stamford, Connecticut- based Aladdin Capital Management, which oversees about $20 billion, including Ottimo. ``We think the assets are good enough'' to attract investors, he said.

The $1.1 trillion market for commercial paper used to buy assets from mortgages to car loans has seized up just as more than half of that amount comes due in the next 90 days, according to the Federal Reserve. Unless they find new buyers, hundreds of hedge funds and home-loan companies will be forced to sell $75 billion of debt backed by mortgages, according to Zurich-based UBS AG, Europe's largest bank.

Those sales would drive down prices in a market where investors have already lost $44 billion, based on Merrill Lynch & Co.'s broadest index of floating-rate securities backed by home-equity loans. That may hurt the 38.4 million individual and institutional investors in money market funds, the biggest owners of commercial paper.

``We're dumping all this collateral into the market and it becomes a death spiral for the assets,'' said Brian McManus, head of collateralized debt obligation research at Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., the fourth-biggest U.S. bank by assets. CDOs contain pools of mortgage securities that have been repackaged and sliced into pieces.

`Uglier and Uglier'

Instead of commercial paper -- corporate debt that comes due in nine months or less -- money fund managers are running for the safety of government securities. Yields on three-month Treasury bills plummeted to 2.9 percent from 4.95 percent at the start of the month, even though central banks injected more than $200 billion into the financial system and the Federal Reserve cut the rate it charges banks for loans on Aug. 17.

The credit crunch, sparked by the highest level of defaults on subprime mortgages in a decade, is ``getting uglier and uglier,'' said Christopher Low, chief economist in New York for FTN Financial, the capital markets unit of Memphis, Tennessee- based First Horizon National Corp. ``This has moved beyond temporary. It's gotten beyond bailing out some hedge fund and into the broad economy.''

Asset-backed commercial paper constitutes about half the total commercial paper market and has risen from $650 billion in 2003, according New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Refusing to Buy

Investors are refusing to buy short-term debt backed by any mortgage that isn't guaranteed by government-chartered companies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Aladdin's Marshman said.

More than 20 companies including San Francisco-based Luminent Mortgage Capital Inc. and Thornburg Mortgage Co. in Santa Fe, New Mexico have been unable to roll over asset-backed commercial paper. Thornburg said yesterday that it sold $20.5 billion of securities at about 95 cents on the dollar to pay down commercial paper it couldn't refinance.

The amount of asset-backed commercial paper outstanding fell $50 billion in the week ended Aug. 15, or 4.3 percent, according to data compiled by the Fed.

Ottimo's bonds are backed by mortgages to people with credit scores of 708 and higher, compared with scores for subprime loans that average less than 620. The company's commercial paper has an A1+ rating from Standard & Poor's and P1 from Moody's Investors Service, the highest available.

No Help

Aladdin wasn't forced to immediately shutter Ottimo because the company exercised an option to extend the maturities on its commercial paper, providing 30 to 45 more days to find buyers.

No issuer had extended maturities in the 12-year history of the asset-backed market until Ottimo, Luminent and a unit of Melville, New York-based American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. did so within the past two weeks, according to S&P and Moody's. More than $100 billion of extendible commercial paper is outstanding.

``The unwind will not be denied,'' said Marshman. ``Whether it takes place overnight or over the course of several months, these assets have to be placed in different hands.''

A spokesman for Luminent, Robert Siegfried of New York- based Kekst & Co., declined to comment. Calls to American Home weren't returned.

Until this month, investors were willing to buy extendible commercial paper because it offered higher interest rates than standard asset-backed commercial paper.

`Financial Panic'

The short-term securities yielded 5.75 percent to 5.95 percent on average on Aug. 8, compared with 5.45 percent for asset-backed commercial paper that isn't extendible and 5.25 percent to 5.30 percent for corporate commercial paper, according to Lee Epstein, chief executive officer of Money Market One, a San Francisco-based broker-dealer of short-term securities.

Now, asset-backed commercial paper with a maturity of 30 days or less yields 6 percent on average, and corporate borrowers pay about 5.2 percent. Investors aren't buying extendible commercial paper.

Wall Street is in a ``financial panic'' and won't fund any mortgage bonds, even AAA rated bonds backed by prime home loans, said Garrett Thornburg, chief executive officer of Thornburg, which makes loans of more than $417,000 to people with good credit. The mortgages are known as jumbo loans because they exceed the limit on what Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae can purchase.

Even the Fed's decision to cut the discount rate that it charges banks failed to revive demand. The rate for overnight borrowing in the asset-backed commercial paper market rose to 6.03 percent yesterday. The yields soared 0.39 percentage points to 6.01 percent on Aug. 17, the biggest rise since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

`Huge Problem'

``There's still a huge problem in the credit markets,'' Thornburg said in an interview. The market ``is unwinding because no one wants to own A1/P1 asset-backed commercial paper.''

Thornburg is using lines of credit for financing even though only 58 of its 38,000 mortgages are 60 days or more in arrears.

``That's just crazy,'' he said. ``If it's backed by subprime, all right. If it's backed by junk, get out. But if it's backed by high-quality receivables from Macy's or triple As from us, that market should be functioning and that market has stopped functioning.''








end of article...sorry for it's length...

To summarize in more simplier terms, this article is describing the uncertainty that is present in the current financial crisis. These people who manage billion dollar funds do not trust one another at this moment.

What does this mean for the common folk?

If you have your savings in money market accounts that are invested in things other than U.S. Treasurys, there is a possibility that your savings are not "secure." Most money market funds state that their objective is to preserve the dollar value that you have invested and secondly to aquire a resonable rate of return in interest payments for the money you have invested in these funds.

The world banking system is trying to stablize this financial crisis. Only time will tell whether they will be successful in putting off until another time what will come to be.

In the Great Depression, people placed their money in J. P. Morgan's bank because they felt secure knowing that they would be able to withdraw their money. During that time, the interest rate payed to the investor was 0%.

The "smart" people in this financial system are panicking while they tell the "simple" people that everything is well...

In Christ
Jeff

_________________
Jeff Marshalek

Another thought...

What happened last week?

The Federal Reserve bailed out all those financial institutions that actually are working against ethically sound financial practices. All these "smart" people have created worthless computer programs that create paper money. There is nothing in this system that promotes formation of long term investments in manufacturing and infrastructure.

Many of the Corporations of this country are spending their profits on buying back stock to increase the earnings per share. They are not interested in investing their profits in "building" something and creating wealth the old fashioned way. This current system is more or less built on paper and illusions.

The kings and princes of this earth are fornicating with the great whore Babylon.


In Christ
Jeff

_________________
Jeff Marshalek

Greetings in Jesus' Name dear saints by Whose Blood we are Saved.AMEN.

i watch some of the shows on fox which focus on business and the economy and such and it seems every time someone questions the stability of the dollar/market/economy, he gets beat down. Last March i watched Mike Norman talk about an economic collapse and they chewed him up ans spat him out and he hasn't been on fox much since...in corresponding a bit with him he seems to have changed his mind about that...some have been accused of being unAmerican (of all things) when pointing out the dangers of how over-extended we are...

i watch this and say to God "Lord, these people are nuts..." then i think about what Paul said in Romans...because they didn't want to retain thought of God, He gave them over to a reprobate mind...these men in many instances have unethically gone about their business, ie they didn't work as unto the Lord aknowledging them in all their ways that He may direct their paths to do right. They followed in the counsel of the enemy and now they are so blind to what they have been doing they don't see the train wreck which is going to hit before this year is out...in one day it will all come crashing down. those who preached this propserity nonsense are also about to be publically Judged and Rejected by God when the economy fails. Woe unto these who have fleeced the flock of God, when that flock turns on them and tramples them...

God help us...AMEN.

Grace and Peace are ours in Jesus.AMEN.

_________________
Farai Bamu

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:39pm BST 10/08/2007

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation. · Blog - Dollar to collapse?

Fistful of dollars - China's trade surplus reached $26.9bn in June

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing's foreign reserves should be used as a "bargaining chip" in talks with the US.

"Of course, China doesn't want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order," he added.

He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it choose to do so.


"China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced the their dollar holdings.

"China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan's exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar," he told China Daily.

The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being "held hostage to economic decisions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo."

_________________
Jeff Marshalek

WHEN THE HERD PANICS
by J. R. Nyquist



We live in the Age of the Herd. After all, people want to belong. They adopt ideologies, attitudes and poses from those around them. They invest money in the same way they adopt opinions. They draw conclusions without thinking. They make decisions without foundation. It is, after all, a reasonable shortcut to assume that someone else has thoroughly examined everything beforehand; that all the angles have been calculated, that a safe path has already been cut through the wilderness. Think of the work and study one must do in order to justify one’s own independent conclusions? Who could possibly afford the time, the effort and the humiliation of discovering that his peers are mainly interested in the more plausible ideas of the multitude? And so, for the most part, our self-advertised individualists are frauds; their individualism is a pose with which they fool themselves and others. The genuine individualist is rarely seen. He would rather avoid a public lynching, and keep alive by staying out of the way. Over a century ago, Friedrich Nietzsche noted “the inner enfeeblement, discouragement and self vexation” of Europe’s non-herd animals. He said that “the perpetual emphasizing of qualities of mediocrity as the most valuable” was progressively making the “strongly constituted” more gloomy. 



We imagine that we are building individualism when we celebrate the individual. In movies, books and plays this tendency has turned to celebrating idiosyncrasy and abnormality. Our educational establishment now teaches that each student is special, that individuality is supreme – while engaged in mass testing and curriculum homogenization. In doing this, we have ruined the very soil of individualism. “Open your eyes, you sociologists of the future!” exclaimed Nietzsche. The individual doesn’t arise from being coddled or “helped” to his individuality. According to Nietzsche, “The individual has grown strong under opposite conditions.” What we describe as the process of building individualism, he warned, “is the most extreme weakening and impoverishment of mankind.” 



In the last analysis, what is the psychology of a society based on political and economic equality? Is it not a herd psychology? And here, even the shepherds of the flock, by relying so heavily on polls and television, are merely navigating in such a way that they do not wander too far from its comforting mass. Nietzsche alleged that a great nihilistic counterfeiting of moral values was underway. Even more likely is a great counterfeiting of political values. If all men are equal, and the herd consists of most men moving in the same direction, then the herd’s direction is ultimately justified (however mindless it actually might be). By the logic of this undirected system the helm itself dissolves into an illusion. There is no rudder.



So here we arrive, after many decades. America faces a great reckoning. Its false system of values cannot continue much longer. We are warned to expect terrorist attacks. The border remains open, with drugs and weapons and enemy operatives pouring through. The president is a castrate. A vast enemy alliance is rapidly arming and positioning itself around the world. Russia is churning out new tanks and missiles and aircraft which are being shipped to Iran and Venezuela and Syria. Meanwhile, the hollowness of the American economic position is about to ring out for all to hear.



It is said that credit inflation causes market bubbles. In recent years we have seen a bubble arise in the stock market. So people moved their money into real estate. This helped to create a real estate bubble. One day we will wake up and find that everything has grown into a bubble, and everything is about to burst. The ever-inflating ideas of the American herd have even inspired a national bubble. Imagining itself invincible, imagining itself the guardian of history’s winning ideas, imagining itself the center of the world economy, America’s inflated self-conception is about to pop. 



What will the herd do when its values collapse? 



The first word that comes to mind is “panic.” It is a word closely related to the word “pandemonium,” defined in Webster’s Dictionary as: “1) The abode of all the demons; in Milton, the capital of Hell or the palace of Satan; 2) a wildly lawless or riotous place.” 



It has just been announced that the Fed is approving a half-percentage cut in its discount rate on loans to banks. “In other words,” noted one analyst, “despite saying they wouldn’t bail out the markets, the risk is so high it looks like the underlying U.S. economy is at stake.” The first sign of panic, the first indication of pandemonium, is the application of desperate measures in an increasingly desperate situation. As St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole recently observed, “There’s no need for the Federal Reserve [to cut the discount rate before the next meeting] unless there’s some sort of calamity taking place….” 



Last week the financial crisis was seen as “spreading.” In response, central banks poured out tens of billions. Alice Rivlin, a former Fed vice chairman, noted: “The Fed has almost unlimited ability to supply liquidity if they feel that it is appropriate.” But this statement doesn’t take panic or pandemonium into account. All the liquidity in the universe cannot quench the fires of Hell. The flames subside for a moment, but then they flare up anew. 



Panic is something that spreads. It begins in one place and moves outward, in every direction. “There is no fence against a panic fright,” wrote Thomas Fuller in 1732. When the herd fall prey to a pack of wolves, the herd begins to panic. Who will stop the panic? The government is expected to stop it. The government must do something. But the government is part of the herd. It shares the herd’s mentality. So who will save the government? 

_________________
Jeff Marshalek

The state of the economy today is exactly the same as the state of the economy in mid-1929.

And just wait for the next 9/11, which should be fairly soon.

_________________
J. Wilson

i posted this first on 3/21/06, and just came across it again today ... This author believed then that a Depression in America in will begin sometime in 2007, and it's interesting to re-listen to a little over a year later ...

[b]FINANCIAL SENSE NEWSHOUR (AUDIO - MP3)
The Second Great Depression[/b]
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2006-0318-2.mp3


Also here on Amazon the author has posted an update in light of our most recent Market panic of 8/9/07 ... With but 4 months left in 2007 He still believes 2007 is the year ... i find his and the customer reviews/responses very interesting - you might too ...

http://www.amazon.com/Second-Great-Depression-Warren-Brussee/dp/1591136881/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-9228689-1976942?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187815581&sr=1-1


Added 8/23/07 ... (this is the other part of the post that i just didn't want to add yesterday - but the unction just won't leave me alone ...)

--- It's also interesting (at least to me) that what this author is predicting (based solely on actual mathematical statistical data) coincides so closely with bro Ironman's posts on the latter part of "Prophetic Credentials II" and his thread "Prophetic Credentials 3" (based solely on faith, and to many a misguided and deluded one) ...

https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=11514&forum=35&start=60&viewmode=flat&order=0
https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=0&topic_id=12628&forum=35&post_id=&refresh=Go

... in which bro Ironman believes that our Lord has revealed to him that this "financial collapse" will also occur in 2007, with the added defining that our Lord will reveal to bro Ironman it's happening 3 days prior for it's proclamation ... i've never been one in the past to attach to such a pointed prophecy, but felt led of our Lord to also attach my faith to his in confirmation and culmination of all that i've been hearing, warning of, and waiting on for over two decades now, including what i believe to be His unction at the onset of 2007 to both post here on SI, and inform the Bishop of my assingned fellowship, that we will see unmistakable REVIVAL burst forth in our midst before this year is thru ...

Now before anyone starts chuckin' stones, i hope you can find it sufficient to just wait in the knowledge that there are only 4 more months left in this year of 2007, and that if what we believe (and we do believe) led of our Lord to pre-dict (and in these cases there's no getting around that they are predictions = to declare or indicate in advance) proves to not come true, then God will prove us false prophets (and false prophets are exactly what we'll be proven to be) not of Himself, and in the midst of what will surely be a most painful (but equally freeing from continued error) experience for bro Ironman and myself in that somehow we we're deluded enough to include our Lord's name in such error - then feel free to begin chuckin' them "i told you so's" - but be it also known that in the spiritual sense
that part of us will already be dead, never to rise again, and what remains of us will be thanking Him for killing that part of us ...

God knows to be able to step out in pre-diction based on "actual mathematical statistical data" like the author is far more appealing to me, and i'm sure to bro Ironman too, than this stepping out on faith in pre-diction that we're telegraphing an actual "word" from God Himself ... That's scary in so many different areas! :-? ... In our humanity this is not an easy place, but bless God one way or the other He will yet get All the glory regardless of what we're proven to be, and Rom. 8:28 will be at work either way to all who have read this here on SI, as well as to ourselves! ...

In the final analysis let God be found true, and every man a liar ... Blessings in Christ Jesus our Lord ---

In the following link (about a third of the way - you can slide the bar) ...

http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2007-1110-1.mp3

... economist Peter Schiff describes how that because of our increasing debt, falling dollar, the subprime mess, etc., that even tho the rest of the trading world would hate to lose the cash cow of American consumerism of their exports it's becoming ever more conspicuous to say the EU, China and OPEC that their loss of us is imminent, especially as it's becoming ever more clear to them that their cost to keep us afloat in the long run is not really financially worth it ... Peter Schiff says that when we fall, the other nations will adjust, may even have to eat some of our reneged upon debt, but will continue to trade with one another while we suffer with all that such a Depression here at home will entail ... It used to be said that the other exporting nations couldn't do without us, now this guy says that not only can they, they will go on without us, it's only a matter of time ...

Then this morning i hear another economist warning of the same thing, that America will suffer while the rest of the world continues to buy and sell?

Zanny Minton Beddoes, The Economist, U.S. Economics Editor discusses her story "Getting Worried Downtown", which examines the role the consumer will play should the U.S. economy head into recession.
11/19/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 30 min.

rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/wj111907_beddoes.rm

Both economist really got me to thinking as in what i've believed i've heard from our Lord over the past 20 years is that the world per-se isn't coming to and end (no one knows that date but Him), just America's status in it ... The chickens are coming home to roost and we're about to suffer from our excesses, especially economically ... In the first Great Depression America was 100 million souls with 1/3 of them suddenly unemployed, in a time when most folk didn't have much anyhow ... Today we are 300 million spoiled brats, with more crap than any of us need ... i heard the other day that there are at least 297 million cars registerd in the U.S. ... Can you imagine what would happen if 150 million souls became suddenly penniless? ... Can you imagine what would happen in the anytime teller generation when many will no longer be able to tap Mac? ... Can you imagine the chaos of runs on banks, closed banks, seized safety deposit boxes, etc ... Can you imagine a once proud and haughty people rich, and in need of nothing, suddenly being made aware that we're really poor, dumb, blind and naked? ... Most saints are looking for a "rapture", whilst all i can see is a "rupture" of every
vainity we hold dear, a sure recipe to a duality of "Revival" for some, and "a great falling away" for many ...

God help us ... God help you ... God help me ... to keep us from falling and to run our race to its end ...