Economist goes of script

[chris]

Great video...He loses it and starts telling the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVXh4xM-Ww&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eprisonplanet%2Ecom%2Fartic les%2Faugust2007%2F060807Cramer%2Ehtm

The disclaimer at the end is priceless, like something of V for Vendetta or something.

[synergy777]

http://www.bloomberg.com/

http://www.ft.com/home/europe

http://online.wsj.com/public/us?

http://agorafinancial.com/index.php

http://www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/website/home.html

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/

http://www.bullnotbull.com/bull/

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/fekete/2007/0530.html

its coming, the endgame shakedown. the party's over, the fools have brought everything, believing in the mantra of the bulls,lol. evr since the stopped printing the m3 figures in march last year, well its enron accounting, lol

[tru3]

Great video...He loses it and starts telling the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVXh4xM-Ww&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eprisonplanet%2Ecom%2Fartic les%2Faugust2007%2F060807Cramer%2Ehtm

The disclaimer at the end is priceless, like something of V for Vendetta or something.

wow. thanks chris.

i don't play the market, but i've always kinda liked cramer. he's always seemed like he cared about the small investor.

that's genuine hysteria in his voice, methinks.

unfortunately, he said bernanke's "asleep", when the truth is the man is wide awake and taking orders from on high.

btw, cramer has that disclaimer on the end of all his radio shows.

[synergy777]

jim rogers is the man, the god of capitalism, google him, he is the money.

[tru3]

jim rogers is the man, the god of capitalism, google him, he is the money.

thanks mate, i'll check him out. :)

[chris]

Yeah, I need to research the economy

[synergy777]

jim rogers has predicted all of whats happening now, the sub prime blowout.

jim rogers - Google Search

jim rogers sayings

Sometimes I wonder if our central bank is just going to print money until we run out of trees.

Even my mother knows there was a bubble (Regarding the late 90s tech bubble)

They wouldn't be politicians if they knew what they were doing

Get out of the dollar, teach your children Chinese and buy as many commodities as you can.

[john white]

that's genuine hysteria in his voice, methinks.

Absolutely. Genuine "where did my reality go???!!!" shit funkin hysteria

[Anders Lindman]

Great video...He loses it and starts telling the truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVXh4xM-Ww&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eprisonplanet%2Ecom%2Fartic les%2Faugust2007%2F060807Cramer%2Ehtm

The disclaimer at the end is priceless, like something of V for Vendetta or something.

LOL. What a rant.

Stock markets and the like are like rigged as hell methinks. The people at the top control the ups and downs so that they can milk the rest of the pyramid. It's a pyramid scam.

[synergy777]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=axWmsMHJDjiQ&refer=home

U.K.'s Subprime Crisis May Be Worse Than U.S.'s: Matthew Lynn

By Matthew Lynn



A collection of estate agents signs Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- We are now all familiar with the damage that can be done to financial markets by a subprime lending crisis. Global equity markets have taken a battering recently because of concerns about U.S. home mortgages.

So which country is next?

The U.K. has had a property bubble every bit as crazy as the U.S.'s. Valuations were stretched, and lending criteria loosened. And now arrears are starting to rocket, even while the economy remains healthy.

Not only does the U.K. face its own subprime crisis, it could be far worse than in the U.S.

The latest figures on debts and mortgage arrears in the U.K. certainly make grim reading. Households ``are getting into more trouble when it comes to their mortgages,'' London-based consulting firm Capital Economics Ltd. said in a note to investors. ``With higher interest rates yet to have their full effect, mortgage arrears are likely to rise further, while unsecured bad debt might start to rise again too.''

The signs of trouble ahead can be seen in the number of homes now being repossessed because their owners can't keep up the payments. According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, lenders foreclosed on 14,000 properties in the first six months of the year, 30 percent more than in the year-earlier period. That reflected ``the impact of an increasing amount of subprime lending within the overall market,'' the council said in a statement on the figures.

Britons in Debt

Arrears aren't in great shape either. An estimated 125,100 households are behind with their mortgage payments, about 1 percent of the total, according to the council. Home owners behind with the payments will have their homes repossessed a few months down the line, unless their finances improve.

The wider picture of indebtedness isn't much more comforting. The British are deeper in the red than any other major economy. According to data from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in London, the ratio of household debt to personal income is 1.62 in the U.K., compared with 1.42 in the U.S., 1.36 in Japan and 1.09 in Germany.

The U.K. is now facing a subprime crisis on a similar scale to the U.S. As anyone who has taken out a mortgage in Britain will know, banks shovel out money without asking many questions. A review by the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority last month criticized reckless lending in the subprime sector, which has, it said, ``resulted in the approval of potentially unaffordable mortgages.''

No Proof of Income

The British market doesn't fall neatly into ``prime'' and ``subprime'' categories. Most of the mainstream lenders offer so- called self-certified mortgages, which require no proof of income. Plenty of prime borrowers -- meaning people who haven't defaulted on a loan yet -- are likely to take out mortgages that will be hard to make the payments on.

The U.K. subprime crisis may be a lot nastier than the U.S one. Here's why.

First, despite the mounting evidence that people can't afford them, house prices continue to soar. The National Housing Federation predicted this week that British house prices will rise 40 percent in the next five years, taking the average value of a home to 302,400 pounds ($618,000) by 2012.

The average British home already costs 11 times the average local salary, and that figure continues to increase. It is driven mainly by the U.K.'s small geographic size, high levels of immigration, and very low levels of house building. People have to live somewhere -- a home, after all, isn't an optional item for most of us.

The net result is that even as payment problems mount, people will carry on taking out bigger mortgages. What choice do they have?

Rate Differences

Next, U.S. interest rates may have reached their peak and could soon fall. In the U.K., that isn't the case. The Bank of England is likely to raise borrowing costs at least once more to 6 percent. If the housing market and general inflation don't show any sign of responding to that treatment, interest rates could go higher still. That won't help borrowers already hard-pressed to make their payments.

There should be two self-correcting mechanisms for fixing a subprime crisis in the housing market. House prices should gently fall, making properties more affordable, and reducing the size of loans. And interest rates should stabilize or fall, making the payments on those loans easier to maintain.

Neither seems to apply in the U.K.

Instead, interest rates are rising and so are house prices. The result is that thousands of families are left in a vulnerable position -- and so are the banks that have lent them money (not to mention the investors who have bought those loans as they have been sold on).

Just Walk Away

While the property market rises, everyone will be safe. If your house is worth more than your mortgage, you will be desperate to hold on to it. If you get into trouble, you can always sell it, repay the loan, and move somewhere cheaper.

Yet, as the U.S. has discovered, if house prices start to fall, that arithmetic changes. If you are in trouble with your mortgage, you can't pay it off by selling. There is little incentive to keep up the payments. Why not just walk away, and hand the keys and the problems over to the mortgage company?

Britain hasn't reached that point yet. But if it does, the mess could be even worse than in the U.S.

To contact the writer of this column: Matthew Lynn in London at matthewlynn@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: August 7, 2007 19:17 EDT

i can't believe cramer spilt the beans on cnbc, financial armageddon, he's seen whats coming.

[synergy777]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai...nchina107a.xml

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 9:54am BST 08/08/2007



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.


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 decicions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo".

She said foreign control over 44pc of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.

Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.

"The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the subprime troubles," he said.

A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.

The yuan has appreciated 9pc against the dollar over the last two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise of China's trade surplus, which reached $26.9bn in June.

Henry Paulson, the US Tresury Secretary, said any such sanctions would undermine American authority and "could trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation".

Mr Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to win few concession from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last week aimed at calming the waters.

why the need for protectionist legislation, its a free market, the strong survive, the best prosper. why didn't countries subject to imperial theft of resources, which powered the industrial revolution of the west, not have the same option for such legislation. its hypocritical, isn't it?

[synergy777]

Jim Cramer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James J. "Jim" Cramer (b. February 10, 1955 (1955-02-10) (age 52), Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania) is an American television personality, former hedge fund manager, and best-selling author.

Cramer is host of CNBC's Mad Money and co-founder of TheStreet.com. According to the January 27, 2006 episode of High Net Worth on CNBC, Cramer has accumulated a net worth of over $100 million. He currently resides in Summit, New Jersey.

http://www.thestreet.com/

MARKET MELTDOWN
MARKET MELTDOWN - YouTube

[teslafire]

Hey syn, other than oil and gold what are the best commodities?

[synergy777]

http://www.bloomberg.com/

http://www.ft.com/home/europe

http://online.wsj.com/public/us?

http://agorafinancial.com/index.php

http://www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/website/home.html

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/

http://www.bullnotbull.com/bull/

http://www.financialsense.com/editor...2007/0530.html

check these sites. coen/wheat is good, as it used for food and biofuel/ethanol. most metals gold, copper, is needed by china/india. if oil spikes, which it will, then biofuel is going to fill the drop off in supplies. also look tar/oil sand in canada, they have huge reserves. american farmer are growing more wheat/corn to sell to biofuel companies than food companies, which puts even more pressure on the food supply.

[synergy777]

agora financial/rude awakening

Preparing for the Harvest
By Chris Mayer

If we were sitting at a bar enjoying a beer - a good beer - and I had to tell you only one reason why you should have money invested in the agricultural boom in some way, I think I would say this: Grain inventories are near all-time lows.

And if you shook your head and still didn't get it, I would slump in my stool a bit and order another round of drinks. I would remind you of basic economics. Higher demand. Lagging supply. Inventories down. Prices going higher. And that's why more production of agricultural goods will follow.

I would remind you that the prices of corn, wheat and soybeans are all at elevated levels in recent years. Just
in the last 12 months alone, corn is up 60%, wheat is up 53% and soybeans are up 40%. Why? I would start with one word.

Recall that famous scene in The Graduate:

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Except my one word would be "ethanol." Ethanol, as you might have suspected, is the big culprit behind a lot of this madness. How do I mean it? Let us see…

Take a look at the nearby pie chart. This is based on the 2005 season. It shows you where America's corn crop goes. Only 14% of the corn crop went toward ethanol in 2005. In 2006, that swung out to 19%. In 2007, the USDA figures ethanol production should consume 27% of the U.S. corn crop. This year, U.S. farmers increased their corn acreage by 19% - the biggest increase since 1944.

The whole ethanol craze - driven by government subsidies and higher oil prices - means there is a lot of demand for corn. It means farmers should continue to expand the acreage they have devoted to corn. The Economist Intelligence Unit projects that the demand for corn should exceed supply through at least 2009. (Also, more acreage devoted to corn means less devoted to soybeans and wheat, pushing up the prices of those commodities).

Interestingly, the U.S. is only one of 41 countries encouraging the production of biofuels as a way to lower dependence on oil. It's just that in other countries, they burn other things - in Southeast Asia, they use palm oil, for instance. In Brazil, it's sugar cane.

There is another big reason why agricultural prices are rising and why farming is a good business again. A rising and more prosperous global population - think India and China - means increasing pressures on grain production. As populations become wealthier, one of the first things to change is the diet. People tend to eat more meat. More meat means more grains. There are loads of statistical evidence to support this idea, none of which I feel like finding at the moment.

So it seems a good bet that the boom in agriculture should continue for several years yet. Either governments back off on their support of biofuels or the price of oil has to come down. Or 2 billion people in China and India have to stop eating. In my view, none of these things seems at all likely in the near term.

So it also seems wise that investors should take this into account and look to profit from the agriculture boom's widening effects.

For example, consider how farmers will cope with the higher prices for their goods. They will look to add new land into production. In some places, this will be hard to do. New arable land is not often lying around near key transportation hubs. So there are challenges there.

In some countries, like Brazil or Ukraine - or Argentina - there is plenty of high-quality fallow land. In the hands of a capable operator, such land can become highly productive farmland. That's one reason I like Cresud (CRESY:nasdaq). It has plenty of arable land in Agentina, which is in high demand these days. Plus, it has a proven track record of continuously improving the uses of its land, such that the land produces higher cash flows and profits.

Farmers will also look to increase the yield they get from their existing land. This translates into more agricultural equipment, more fertilizers and more crop protection services.

We've already got Titan Intl. (TWI:nyse) and Lindsay Corp. (LNN:nyse) on the agricultural equipment front. Titan makes tires for agricultural vehicles. Lindsay makes irrigation equipment. Both have been nice winners. As I write, Titan is up 43% since February and Lindsay is up 80% since last June.

I like the fertilizer idea, too. We hold Agrium (AGU:nyse) in Capital & Crisis and have nearly tripled our money. In Mayer's Special Situations, we own Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (SWP:tsx), which is a big grain handler in the Great White North. It also is the largest distributor of agri-products (seed, fertilizers, herbicides, etc.) in the Canadian prairies. The Pool has also been a terrific investment so far, with a gain of 44% since last July.

So we've played the agricultural angle many ways and come up smelling like a rose each time. All of these stocks are beyond my buy-up-to price, except for Cresud.

That agricultural bull market is just beginning. Prepare now for the harvest.

[Joel's Note: As Chris correctly pointed out above, higher demand (all other things being equal) will result in higher prices. It's not surprising then that Chris' own research service, Mayer's Special Situations, is about to undergo a price hike. You see, when Chris delivers consistent winners like the ones he mentioned above, word spreads quickly. Pretty soon you have people telling friends about the guy that got them onto Agrium, or Lindsay Corp. or Cresud. After a while, everyone wants in and the price of the service rises, which is exactly what's happening right now.

The price for Mayer's Special Situations is heading upwards to the tune of $500, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take advantage of Chris' stellar service. In fact, to ensure no Executive Series reader is priced out of this opportunity, we're going to front you that $500...But only until September 4. Read on here for details .

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This one company is the one to own if you hope to get rich on this revolutionary new discovery "event."

But you have to let me know by Sept. 4 if you want
http://www.isecureonline.com/Reports/MSS/EMSSH821/?o=1317701&u=5174190&l=827617