25 Reasons why America is slowly Tanking!

01: The Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq have lost all of their 2007 gains in the first 4 weeks of 2008. We'll see the Dow at 9,500 to 10,500 this year.

02: Gold has gained 43.2% and silver has gained 26.1%. Look for gold to hit $3,000/ounce by this time in 2010 and silver will be over $100/ounce.

03: Real estate markets are virtually dead with record levels of inventory. Housing prices will continue to fall for another 2 to 4 years depending upon what action(s) the government is prepared to take and whether or not those actions make sense in the first place.

04: Hundreds of billions in mortgages are due for readjustment to unaffordable levels for millions of homeowners.

05: Defaults on all types of debt are significantly increasing.

06: Consumers are buried in debt with little or no savings. There is an erosion of consumer confidence.

07: Credit markets are frozen.

08: M3 is about 16% (not published - see note at the bottom of this post)

09: Banks are writing-off or writing down tens-of-billions in subprime losses, bad mortgages and loans.

10: Tens-upon-tens of trillions of potential derivative losses are looming just around the corner.

11: The American dollar is tanking with no end in sight. It will probably bottom-out somewhere between 40 to 50 on the USDX from its current position of 75.8.

12: State budgets are running massive deficits and some are close to bankruptcy.

13: The national debt and trade deficits are completely out of control.

14: There is very little left from the manufacturing sector.

15: Unemployment is growing.

16: Off-shoring and outsourcing continue to eliminate the better-paying sectors.

17: Because of outsourcing, a lower dollar will not give American exports an advantage, because there's not much in the way of exports to begin with. So if the dollar is pegged at 55, the GDP would only increase by 1/2% at the top end.

18: Wages will remain stagnant.

19: Oil prices will continue to climb. Look for $125 - $130/barrel this year.

20: There will be price increases for most commodities.

21: Food prices are now at record highs.

22: Irresponsible and unresponsive government. The recent "economic stimulation" package is merely a drop in the ocean. It is not enough to cause any type of permanent improvement in the plight that Americans now find themselves in. As far as I'm concerned it is a PR package pure and simple to help the Republicans in the upcoming presidential election.

23: The Federal Reserve, which is neither Federal nor a Reserve, but rather a privately owned central banking system owned by a cabal of 12 banks with the power granted to it by government to create print and manage Americas money supply, is driving America further in debt each and every day. The Fed is, was and continues to be the biggest scam ever foisted on America. Google it and be surprised at what you will learn. And these greedy clowns control your life through your economic well-being or lack thereof. By the way, even the courts have ruled that the Fed is NOT part of the government.

24: Rampant illegal immigration is providing a source of cheap labour.

25: Perpetual abscence of talented and knowledgeable leadership in Washington today and in the foreseeable future. Listen to President Bush, Billary Clinton, Obama, McCain, Romney, and Huckabee. Now ask yourself ... is this the best that America can do? Can any one of these people fix America's problems or are they in varying degrees part of the problem?

NOTE:

In the U.S. the Federal Reserve defines (what a surprise) the measures of money supply within 4 categories:

MO: total of all physical currency plus accounts at the central bank that can be exchanged for physical currency.

M1: MO plus those portions of MO held as reserves or vault cash plus the amount in demand accounts (Checking or current accounts)

M2: M1 plus most savings accounts, money market accounts and time deposits (certificates of deposit) under $100,000

M3: M2 plus all other CD's, deposits of eurodollars and repurchase agreements.

The Fed stopped publishing M3 stats in March 2006 (My gosh another surprise) explaining that it costs too much to collect the data and that it doesn't provide significantly useful information ... really?