Strong Dollar, Falling Oil Prices Send Stocks Down; Homebuilders’ Confidence Dips; IMF Improves U.S. Outlook; Obama Tells Doctors Health Care Changes Needed; Six Flags Bankrupt

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics has an “inflation calculator” on their website. It allows you to enter an amount of money and a previous year and then tells you how much money you would need to have today to match the same buying power.

Rattner Floated as Car Czar; Sources: Barclays Planning 2,100 Lay Offs; BG Group Pumping Billions into Brazil Oil; Pfizer Cutting 800 Research Posts; Oil Snaps Week-Long Skid; Commercial Banks Borrowing Less Than Investment Banks; Companies Scramble to Fill Pension Plan Gaps

No one person is responsible for the credit crisis, the failure of investment banks, the insolvency of commercial banks world-wide, the implosion of the world’s stock markets, or for leading us to the precipice of another great depression.

“Investors are taking losses of up to 90% in the $1.2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) tied to corporate credit,” reports Bloomberg. Much of the losses have been triggered by the failure of Lehman Brothers and Icelandic bank.

“Bank stocks are getting extremely cheap,” my friend Andrew told me over breakfast yesterday.

All was quiet in the Far East and Europe in gold and silver trading yesterday morning. Then the boys in New York showed up for work…and away went the prices to the upside.

By how much is the Libor lending rate understated? Maybe as much as 0.3%, which doesn’t sound like that much, but when you are talking about trillions and trillions of pounds and euros of debt, it adds up to a lot of money!

The credibility of Libor is in doubt so interbank lending rates could be higher than reported. If estate agents were woodworm, many a British high street would complain of infestation.

In my recent article, “The FED’S End Run,” I wrote this: Beginning late Friday evening, March 29, we have been in the midst of an end run by the Federal Reserve System around Congress. The FED is about to be given authority to regulate the nation’s largest non-commercial financial institutions, including stocks and commodities.