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Fitch says China credit bubble unprecedented…

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:46:35 -0400

Nothing that fiscal adjustment can’t keep from spilling over into the real economy. But that’s not how the western educated offspring now in charge learned it… Fitch says China credit bubble unprecedented in modern world history By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard June 16 (Telegraph) — China’s shadow banking system is out of control and under mounting stress [...]

Stock Market Analysis: Insane Volatility from Wolf on Wall Street

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:03:58 -0400

This is a rare glimpse of a daily Wrap post for Wolf on Wall Street members, in this post however I go in to some detail as to what we expect from the market as far a the next directional moves, when to some degree and what we expect after that. I also cover what is ACTUALLY moving the market and why it's doomed to fail badly. There a lot of great information here taken from months of 3C charts

S&P Says U.S. Debt Is “Stable”, Really.

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:10:35 -0400

Standard & Poor’s upgraded the U.S. credit outlook this morning from “negative” to “stable.”

Fun with Credit Repair: Gamification of Credit Repair Website

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 09:58:02 -0400

Student Loan FRED Graph

Wed, 29 May 2013 15:39:56 -0400

The growth rate of student loans is still high, but decelerating. It’s still a bit over .5% of GDP each year, but that % is falling as well. (still searching for the source of credit expansion that’s going to drive GDP in Q2) Full size image Full size image

She Lost $35,000 on Penny Slots, Then Got Her Finances Back on Track

Fri, 10 May 2013 05:25:00 -0400

DailyFinance.com: AP By Gerri Detweiler When Linda Mannerberg attended the Women's Money Conference in Las Vegas Nevada in 2012, she was struggling with debt and a gambling addiction she hid from those closest to her. She attended the conference again this year in ... Read more

Rogoff & Reinhart answering my call in FT – Austerity is not the only answer to a debt problem

Thu, 02 May 2013 10:43:46 -0400

Good to see Ken, who I’ve never met, and Carmen who I do know, no doubt assisted by her husband Vince, beginning to come clean with this response. While not complete, it’s the beginning of an encouraging, epic reversal and a first step in the right direction! My comments added below: Austerity is not the [...]

Overall view of the economy

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:01:27 -0400

This is my overall view of the economy. The US was on the move by Q4 last year. A housing and cars (and student loans) driven expansion was happening, with slowing transfer payments and rising tax revenues bringing the deficit down as the automatic stabilizers were doing their countercyclical thing that would eventually reverse the [...]

American Dream Eludes With Student Debt Burden: Mortgages

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:54:59 -0400

The student loan expansion adds to demand on the way up. And subtracts when income goes to paying it back instead of spending. American Dream Eludes With Student Debt Burden: Mortgages By Kathleen M. Howley April 12 (Bloomberg) — Luke Nichter of Harker Heights, Texas, said hes not a renter by choice. The Texas A&M [...]

Alternative Investing and Borrowing Link Up

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:50:00 -0400

Alternative Investing and Borrowing Link Up

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:50:00 -0400

Credit Karma Raises $30 Million Series B, Becomes More Like Mint As It Expands Beyond Credit Monitoring

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:00:36 -0400

Credit Karma, the free online credit monitoring startup founded back in 2008, is today announcing $30 million in Series B financing, in a round led by new investors Ribbit Capital and Susquehanna Growth Equity, with participation from existing investor Felicis Ventures. The company has now grown its user base to 10 million, and increased revenue by over 4,000 percent since its Series A in 2009. In addition, Credit Karma is launching a new platform called Insight today, offering a real-time view into users' overall financial health.

ATM Viruses Are Out to Steal Your Cash

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:05:00 -0400

DailyFinance.com: Eliot J. Schechter/ Bloomberg News By Credit.com Staff These days, consumers are often on the lookout for identity theft scams that may end up compromising many aspects of their finances, but now criminals are doing even more to rip them off, ... Read more

Don’t Call it a Bubble…

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:36:58 -0400

I jumped on the housing market recovery back in 2011. Homebuilders had been locked in purgatory for more than five years. They overbuilt (massive understatement there, I know) during boom times. When demand fell off a cliff, they were forced to sit around and lick their wounds. So they waited. Some even strategically bought land at a deep discount. And when homebuilders looked to be bottoming in late 2011, I turned bullish. The decision sparked [...]

Don’t Call it a Bubble… appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter.

Tonight's Stock Market/ Futures

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 21:05:31 -0400

Again, from Wolf on Wall Street Just because we are at an important area in the market... The opening futures is where the damage was done, the S&P futures to 1 week lows and Gold Futures to 3 week highs, this is exactly what I was talking about in the context of Credit which took a dump Thursday and Friday, when the market speaks, listen because all it takes is a day to erase

Can Poor Credit Cost You a Job? A Recent Study Says Yes

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 09:00:00 -0400

DailyFinance.com: By Blake Ellis One in four unemployed Americans have been required to go through a credit check when applying for a job, and one in ten have been denied jobs due to information in their credit report, according to a survey by liberal think-tank ... Read more

Plagiarism and the link: How the web makes attribution easier — and more complicated

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 12:44:49 -0500

The controversy over writer Nate Thayer's failure to credit his sources, which some alleged amounted to plagiarism, is just part of an ongoing debate over how we use -- and give credit for -- information in a digital age.

Plagiarism and the link: How the web makes attribution easier — and more complicated

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 12:44:49 -0500

Consumer down ex student loans

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 20:23:48 -0500

Total consumer credit up 16.1 billion, fed student loans up 25.9 billion. Note that the student loan dollars get spend and add to demand/gdp/etc as well. > > (email exchange) > > From: Jacob > > The $16.1b pop in Jan consumer credit is once again a function of the relentless > increase in student loan debt. On an [...]

True?…or Not True?

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:00:59 -0500

Let’s play a little game of “True/Not true.” We ask the question and you answer, “True” or, “Not true.” 1) Two police officers in Colorado lost their jobs and face felony charges for shooting an elk. 2) Two police in Washington State lost their jobs and face felony charges for shooting a man in his bed 16 times. 3) America spends more money on the TSA each year than the nation of Nicaragua earns. 4) [...]

True?…or Not True? appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter.

Debt Deliquencies — Student loans climbing – close to 14%

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 08:52:49 -0500

Student loans have been making a meaningful contribution to aggregate demand. If origination slows it’s another negative for growth and output to add to the tax hikes and spending cuts. This is not to say I favor the student loan channel for education. Quite the contrary, in fact. But just like the savings and loan [...]

Want to Save on Gas? It's All About How You Pay

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: Drivers are once again feeling the sting of high gas prices, with the average price of regular gas rising by 15 cents a gallon in the last week alone. While you can always drive around town looking for the cheapest gallon in your area, it's also ... Read more

Conference Board's Leading Indicators Index Up 0.2% in January

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 06:30:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER WASHINGTON (AP) - A measure of the U.S. economy's future direction edged up in January from December, suggesting slow growth will continue in the coming months. The Conference Board says its index of leading indicators ... Read more

When You've Passed On, Who Inherits Your Credit Card Debt?

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: When we die, we leave all kinds of things behind, including our debts. And it's not always clear what exactly happens to those obligations. Consider your credit card debt. According to Aaron Crowe at the Credit.com blog, your heirs are not likely to ... Read more

Study: 1 in 5 Consumers Had Error in Credit Report

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:10:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: By MARCY GORDON WASHINGTON (AP) - One in five consumers had an error in a credit report issued by a major agency, according to a government study released Monday. The Federal Trade Commission study also said that 5 percent of the consumers ... Read more

Surge in Chinese credit raises fears

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:55:42 -0500

All else equal, a reduction of state sponsored lending gets ‘replaced’ by non govt lending to the extent it can be sustained by incomes, collateral values, etc. And not to forget, likewise, the private sector is necessarily pro cyclical. The western educated kids at the name mainstream schools may not have brought that home with [...]

Perspective on student loan growth (CHARTS)

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 07:48:33 -0500

Surprise! PDF: Student Debt

S&P On the Kill List

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:30:54 -0500

“Paybacks are a bitch,” as they say. What was Standard & Poor’s thinking back in August 2011, when the ratings agency took the Red, White, and Blue’s AAA rating away? A rating the most powerful government in the history of the world had held for 70 years. S&P downgraded long-term US debt to AA-plus. That score ranks lower than over a dozen governments, including Liechtenstein’s, and is level with Guernsey’s and France’s. McGraw-Hill Companies (S&P’s [...]

S&P On the Kill List appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter.

Investing in American Consumption

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 04:48:00 -0500

Investing in American Consumption

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 04:48:00 -0500

Investing in Banking Credit Cards and Loans

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 18:39:00 -0500

Investing in Banking Credit Cards and Loans

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 18:39:00 -0500

Year-End Paperwork Purge: What to Keep, What to Shred

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 01:30:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: New Year's resolutions seem to follow a pattern year after year: Reduce clutter, tackle paperwork, organize finances, and get a jump on taxes. But even the most digitally savvy consumer can amass reams of paperwork by year's end, from ATM and gift ... Read more

12 Holiday Cyber Scams to Watch Out For

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:00:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: By Jill Krasny As more consumers pick up their smartphones and tablets to go holiday shopping, cyber crooks are trying just about everything to dupe them out of their hard-earned money. Forty percent of identity theft victims were targeted while ... Read more

U.S. Consumer Borrowing Rises to Record $2.75 Trillion

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 11:30:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans swiped their credit cards more often in October and borrowed more to attend school and buy cars. The increases drove U.S. consumer debt to an all-time high. The Federal Reserve said ... Read more

5 Great Credit Cards for Holiday Shopping (And One to Avoid)

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 02:00:00 -0500

DailyFinance.com: When it comes to holiday shopping (and all shopping, for that matter), not all credit cards are created equal. But choosing the best credit cards for making your holiday purchases depends a lot on what sort of shopper you are. Are you using plastic ... Read more

Credit and Credibility

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 15:21:20 -0500

Is it laughable, or lamentable? The market, that is. In the past few years, it has become a joke…a tool of manipulation, an unreliable source of information. Despite the outperformance of the US equity markets this year, ordinary investors (presumably people with savings they would like to invest in productive and attractive businesses) are not interested. Reuters columnist Felix Salmon recently posted a few charts to highlight this trend. This one, originally appearing at ZeroHedge, [...]

Credit and Credibility appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter.

Italian article this am

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:28:17 -0500

Misrepresents what I say a bit, but they do have my picture next to JFK! ;) The IMF: sovereign currency, no longer the monopoly of the banks Eliminate the public debt of the United States at once, and do the same with Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Greece. At the same time revive the ‘ [...]

Down the Debt Drain

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:00:00 -0500

The US has too much debt. This is no longer a controversial statement. Some may believe other problems are more urgent, or that we need to grow our way out rather than slash spending. But even the most spendthrift pundits acknowledge that the debt-to-GDP ratio of the US must decrease if we are to have a stable, prosperous economy. The private sector has reacted to this over-indebted reality as you would expect: by deleveraging. Since [...]

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Reverse Mortgages: 3 Ways You Can Tap Home Equity to Enhance Your Retirement

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 02:00:00 -0400

DailyFinance.com: By Gerri Detweiler You may have heard of reverse mortgages as a way for seniors to tap the equity in their homes to pay for living expenses, but there are other ways that homeowners are using their homes to get by. Many seniors are on fixed ... Read more

What the Road to Hell is Paved With…

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 09:30:19 -0400

Improving the world costs money. When you have it, your efforts either bear fruit. Or they don’t. But when you don’t have it, when you have to change the world on credit, then what? John Maynard Keynes revolutionized the economics profession in the early 20th century. It was he more than anyone who changed it from a being a refuge for observers and willowy philosophers into a hard-charging phalanx for men of action. But Keynes’ [...]

What the Road to Hell is Paved With… appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter.

The Downside of Debt

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 09:30:32 -0400

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, president of Argentina, will never be remembered as a great economist. Nor will she win any awards for ‘accuracy in government reporting.’ Au contraire, under her leadership, the numbers used by government economists in Argentina have parted company with the facts completely. They are not even on speaking terms. Still, Ms. Fernandez deserves credit. At least she is honest about it. The Argentine president visited the US in the autumn of [...]

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After the Downgrade, the Deluge

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:30:57 -0400

Having crossed the feds already, the plucky rating agency Egan-Jones is going all in… and joining up with the Chinese and the Russians. Egan-Jones is the lone rating agency that’s paid by the buyers of the securities it rates — unlike S&P, Moody’s and Fitch, who are paid by the issuers. Or as author William D. Cohan wrote at Bloomberg recently, Egan-Jones is “the one rating firm not on Wall Street’s take.” Thus did Egan-Jones [...]

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Earthquakes and Economic Forecasts

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:30:31 -0400

“The verdict is perverse and the sentence ludicrous,” the respected scientific journal Nature writes in disgust. Just when we’d though we’d seen it all…our War on You file goes international today with a story that’s so unreasonable it surprised even our most cynical sensibilities. “Six Italian scientists and a government official,” Sky News reports, “have been found guilty of multiple manslaughter for underestimating the risks of a killer earthquake in L’Aquila in 2009.” Seven men [...]

Earthquakes and Economic Forecasts appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter.

The Economic Singularity, Part II

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:30:10 -0400

In our analogy, the event horizon is relatively easy to pinpoint. It is what Rogoff and Reinhart call the “Bang!” moment, when a country loses the confidence of the bond market. For Russia it came at 12% of debt-to-GDP in 1998. Japan is at 230% of debt-to-GDP and rising, even as its population falls — the Bang! moment approaches. Obviously, Greece had its moment several years ago. Spain lost effective access to the bond market [...]

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Is it Cronyism to Ride the Boom?

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:00:30 -0400

After the bust of 2008, well-connected corporations and banks lobbied for and received many billions in bailouts from the government. The public was outraged. The term “crony capitalism” came into new prominence as a designation for capitalists who live off the taxpayer. But how far do we want to take this language? In a mixed economy, no one is untainted by some association with government. And in a paper-money economy, every existing enterprise is compelled [...]

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The Economic Singularity

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:30:55 -0400

Singularity was originally a mathematical term for a point at which an equation has no solution. In physics, it was proven that a large enough collapsing star would eventually become a black hole so dense that its own gravity would cause a singularity in the fabric of spacetime, a point where many standard physics equations suddenly have no solution. Beyond the “event horizon” of the black hole, the models no longer work. In general relativity, [...]

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Tight Money, Easy Credit

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 10:07:21 -0400

It’s getting difficult to even read the news without throwing a brick at the computer screen. The world economy appears to be in the hands of people who don’t understand the difference between easy money and easy credit. Here’s the Financial Times: Opponents contend that the Fed’s third round of quantitative easing – nicknamed QE3 [...]

Could the Government Get a Mortgage?

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 12:00:22 -0400

Mortgage credit is tight, and extremely so. Romney and Obama were even questioned about it in their first debate. Think of all the potential issues that presidential candidates might address–fiscal cliffs, budget deficits, mass unemployment. That they were even asked about this matter illustrates how much government sponsors and supports the nation’s housing market. People want to borrow and government wants them to borrow. Ben Bernanke wants everyone to refinance, like he did in 2011 [...]

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Lots of Early Signals Today

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:56:45 -0400

Here are two posts from Wolf on Wall Street from today that gave us very early signals as to what the rest of the day was going to look like. For more information about Wolf on Wall Street, check out this link. Monday, October 1, 2012 10:17 a.m. Opening Indications As just mentioned, this looks like an early order triggering move. In most cases the 1 min confirmed, but is either