MF Cuts Global Outlook; Brazil Hedge Fund Sells Banks, Homebuilders; February Home Prices Up 0.7%; Home Prices in Dubai Could Fall 70%; Apple Tops Forecasts; Feds Search Siemens’ Offices; Freddie Mac CFO Found Dead; E-Bay Beats Street

Within the last year, the true extent of the real estate debacle and ensuing credit crisis in the United States has become blatantly obvious.   But now there is a new phenomenon rearing its ugly head: a credit crisis of the individual that is hitting a large number of Americans straight in the pocketbook. The reason: credit providers have started to batten down the hatches.

Subprime has found a new victim, reports Bloomberg: municipal bonds. Already, the amount of municipal bonds that have defaulted this year is three times that of 2007.

So far this year, $736 million in municipal bonds have defaulted. That doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t pay investors; they may have just drawn down reserves. That’s what happens just before they stop making payments to bondholders.

Follow This Indicator To Gauge Financial Sector Health – And Grab Profits.

Kohn gives the wink and nod… GDP is revised up to .09%… Dollar Bulls dancing in the streets… Oil prices fall…

Those were the words that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke used to describe the financial markets (and by extension the economy) these heady spring days when everybody else with a rostrum, it seems, has pronounced the so-called liquidity crisis contained.

Right now, we have a rare opportunity. We can get paid a monthly double-digit dividend… We can buy in for only 85 cents on the dollar… And we can have the skills of a legendary investment manager behind us.

The news that the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) system of setting interest rates is running into trouble was surprising at first glance.

Blood-in-the-streets investing may sound cold, heartless, and a cheap way to make a buck, but we’re investors. We’re looking for the political turmoil… financial hardships… assassinations… bloody uprisings… the events that seed wealth.