It takes more than a globally competitive economy to have a sound banking system. For the third straight year, the United States finds itself at the top of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as part of its annual Global Competitiveness Report.
So Alan Greenspan – former chairman of the Federal Reserve – thinks this equals the Great Crash, if not out-bads it.
I sent a rather aggressive email this morning: Oi! Stop taking all our money!” It was to a former colleague at Northern Rock (NHRKF). I signed it as ‘The Taxpayer’ — a stroke of satirical genius I’m sure you’ll agree… Or maybe not.
Two bits of news illustrate ‘the squeeze’ taking place in Britain. I’ll get to them in just a moment — and I’ll tell you what you can do about it. But first, what is ‘the squeeze’?
I had lunch with a leading hedge fund manager over the weekend. He didn’t want me to mention his name, but he was happy to admit – in fact he went on about it at great length – that he and many of his peers have a serious problem on their hands and there’s not a lot they can do about it.
British readers may see parallels between the collapse of US lender IndyMac (NYSE:IMB) and Britain’s Northern Rock (PINK:NHRKF), which failed last September.
Commodity Trend Alert editor Eric Roseman is issuing a stark warning: Your bank could be next.
If you have money in the US banking system, he recommends you put it instead in Treasury bills or exchange traded funds (ETFs) that invest in short-term Treasury securities like SHV or SHY.
Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) spend more than $170 million on lobbyists according to a report by AP.
What did you expect? They were no angels, says Bill Bonner in The Daily Reckoning. It never hurts to have friends in high places. And Fannie and Freddie had the deepest pockets in town.
Now it’s payback time and - surprise, surprise – the government is bending over backwards to ensure Fannie and Freddie won’t fail. All with taxpayers’ money, of course. More from Bill…
How the current financial crisis was born in the 1970s. Whether it’s Northern Rock (NHRKF), Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE), Indy Mac (IMB), the Labour Government, the State of California, or whoever is going to run into trouble next week, the sirens are blaring, ‘global financial emergency’.