So what has stocks soaring now, during this great deleveraging — this credit crunch — this historic pullback in household balance sheets?

Now that the subprime, low-income crowd has taken their lashings, there’s a new Great Recession victim — the faux rich.

Waterford, Ireland

Our faith is weakening. That is, our faith that the government will be able to cause inflation, sooner or later. Let’s review our own narrative: deflation now, inflation later.

In 1961, the great free-market economist Milton Friedman wrote a paper called “The Lag in Effect of Monetary Policy,” wherein he discovered a six- to nine-month delay in how long it would take for a change in monetary policy to be felt in the economy and the stock market.

Stock Market Rally in Financial Horror Movie. Drag Me to Hell! That’s the title of the first horror movie with a credit crunch theme. No kidding. We just read about it in the Financial Times.

More bad news for housing… one chart shows the bottom could still be far away…Credit crunch slams entitlements… demise of Social Security, Medicare now years closer…Stocks suffer… Bill Jenkins on the “surprise” data behind today’s sell-off…Jim Nelson shares one of “the world’s most exciting growth industries”…Plus, Byron King’s taking profits… a sector worth selling, right now

Gold was flat until Hong Kong closed on Thursday, then it pushed higher, peaking at $925 during the first hour of the New York session, but that was it as it fell back into a $910-$915 trading range and stayed there through the Globex, finishing an uninspiring day at $910.00/oz., down $1.00. Overnight, gold is pushing higher.

After months of speculation, General Growth Properties Inc. (GGP) filed the biggest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history, ending a futile seven-month effort to refinance its debt.

It’s hard to look at Peter Schiff with anything other than awe.

U.S. Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner told the Senate Finance Committee yesterday (Wednesday) that drastic measures are needed to combat the U.S. recession and promised to overhaul the beleaguered $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).