If You Thought the Housing Meltdown Was Bad…
Doug Hornig, Senior Editor, (Casey Research):

…wait until you see what’s in the cards for commercial real estate.

Baltimore (TFN): The Fed is meeting today. And I ask who cares? At this point, Bernanke and his troupe of politicians masquerading as economists are in so far over their heads, no matter what they do or say, you can bet the move is designed to protect their butts, not yours.

First-quarter earnings reports for the big banks weren’t bad on the surface. But banks had to pull some rabbits out of the hat to do it. For example, Goldman Sachs skipped December in order to post improved numbers.

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.

Should U.S. debt still garner a AAA? One agency shows first signs of downgrade… Alan Knuckman offers “the most important indicator” in today’s market… Chris Mayer’s pair trade “the financial crisis will not undo”… Obama’s latest intervention… how the government plans to fix the derivatives market… A tech industry Patrick Cox says “you want to own” right now

Wall Street created the U.S. housing bubble and now it’s missing the real estate rebound.  And Andrew Waite understands why.

While the U.S. Federal Reserve’s plan to buy more than $1 trillion in debt has helped unfreeze the credit markets, it has also effectively capped U.S. Treasury yields and undermined the dollar.

Fed will Buy up to $1 Trillion in Securities; Source: IBM Looking to Buy Sun; Record Hedge Funds Collapses in 2008; Stale Earnings at General Mills; World Bank: China Stabilizing; AIG Exec Asks for Bonus Money Back

Fed opens the pocket book…  Creative measures…  Inflation/dollar debasement concern…  Currencies soar…  And Now… Today’s Pfennig!