Economy

The United States has gone from saving an average of 8-10% of income for decades to zero or negative savings today. If you look at this chart of 12-month rolling average monthly data, it looks like people actually saved more as inflation…

A leading Spansh newspaper, ABC, reported today that Spanish growth is decelerating quickly. According to the paper, year-on-year growth slowed from 3.5% to 2.7% while quarter-on-quarter, growth was only 0.3% versus 0.8% in the previous…

I don't know if you caught the Bloomberg article about the $35 billion in missing writedowns, but I thought it was about time I exposed it. Bloomberg news says:Banks and securities firms, reeling from record losses resulting from the…

George Soros claims that we are experiencing the most wrenching times in our financial system since the Great Depression. One has to be either appreciative of his advice or envious of his wealth. He made $3 billion in 2007 as a hedge fund…

This chart speaks for itself.See also:Unemployment Report: biggest rise in rate in two decadesChart of the day: Change in jobless claims

I am on record for expecting a serious downturn after the Tech Bubble crashed in 2001. We muddled through for a few years, but ultimately most of the damage was done and gone by 2004. The Tech Bubble was a bubble of asset prices that had…

The list of financial institutions needing capital because they lost so much in the credit crisis grows by the day. Now, its the insurance company AIG. After their abysmal earnings report, they need an enormous $20 billion to tide them…

I stumbled across an interesting blog over the weekend called "The Automatic Earth." I had been doing some research into writedowns at financial institutions due to loan losses and asset impairment when a great entry from The Automatic…

Since the beginning of the bull market in 1982, the U.S. has become a society hooked on debt. Total debt (including financial services companies) has nearly doubled as a percentage of GDP in those 25-odd years (from 133% of GDP at $4…

The financial services sector has been reeling from over $300 billion in writedowns due to the credit crisis that has spread globally. I expect further losses to hit this sector in the U.S. due to commercial real estate, credit cards,…