New York Times Article on Nouriel Roubini as “Dr. Doom”

“Time is short for making a course correction before this grand experiment in liberty goes into deep hibernation,” the U.S. Congress was told earlier this month. On July 9, Texas Rep. Ron Paul warned the House Financial Services Committee that “big events” were about to occur.

“… I have days, growing more frequent all the time, when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some big events are about to occur,” he said. “These fast-approaching events … will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed” (emphasis ours throughout). Paul continued:

There are reasons to believe this coming crisis is different and bigger than the world has ever experienced. …

The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the nasdaq bubble; stock markets plunging; unemployment rising; massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt exists as to whether we’ll get stagflation. The question that will soon be asked is: When will the stagflation become an inflationary depression?

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July 22nd, 2008

The LA Times ran an editorial today that cuts to the heart of one of our issues that have Americans on edge; we sit in fascination as inflation has skyrocketed, and everything we buy has gone up in price, and it’s a strange world when a gallon of milk is sometimes more expensive than a gallon of gas.

In this economy, failure is an option

By Peter G. Gosselin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 20, 2008

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy appears to be caught in a cycle of recurrent panic attacks. So many things have gone wrong, and so much anxiety has accumulated in the financial system, that nothing seems safe.

As a result, no sooner has one crisis seemed to recede than another has popped up, to be followed by another and still another.

* Nations with vast oil wealth gaining clout

*It costs what?! Calculating the CPI requires a lot of shopping around

*Americans may be losing faith in free markets

Women And Children Last

Compelling confirmation that we're in the early phase of a world-historic economic collapse can be found in this fact: Our rulers are moving quickly to redistribute blame for the disaster from those who precipitated it to those who are seeking to protect themselves from it.


In the fashion of Stalin deflecting blame for the failure of central planning onto the backs of faceless "wreckers" or randomly selected "saboteurs," the Regime in Washington is literally preparing to criminalize the act of "talking down the economy."


If you're an investment broker caught speaking ill of the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or advising your clients to short those two federally supported deadbeat institutions, you could incur the wrath of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the Clap-for-Tinkerbell assumptions being imposed on the markets by the Regime, such actions quite likely will be designated a form of "market manipulation" -- what the SEC, in a July 13 press release timed to coincide with Commissar Paulson's bailout announcement, called "the intentional spread of false information intended to manipulate securities prices."

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July 10 (Bloomberg) -- ``Granddad Benny, is it true that capitalism committed suicide?''

Granddad looked up from the fire he was stoking with bundles of 2006 and 2007 vintage mortgage-backed bonds. ``In a way, Joel, yes. In developed countries, people got too greedy, especially bankers, and everyone borrowed too much. In less developed countries, people racing to improve their living standards reawakened the slumbering inflation monster.''

Joel put down the stick he was using to scratch the dirt. ``Why did the Gigantic Global Bubble Burst of 2008 catch people unawares? Weren't there any warning signs, Granddad?''

``With hindsight, Joel, water should have set alarm bells ringing. Before the Giglobubu, wealthy people paid $15 per liter for Cape Grim bottled water from Tasmania, at a time when the Asian Development Bank estimated that 700 million people in Asia lacked access to clean water. Investment banks even started to invent securities betting that water shortages would arise. Even so, when the Water Wars started, the world wasn't prepared.

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Stocks of 2 'insolvent' firms holding 40% of US housing mortgages plummets. Oh. oh.

By Zhang Shidong

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Investors should avoid the dollar and buy commodities, which is the ``best investment'' for this year, said Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.

Avoid the dollar ``at all costs,'' Rogers said at the opening of an investment club in Shanghai today. ``Agricultural prices have much higher to go over the next decade. We have a shortage of everything including seeds.''

The U.S. currency has slipped 7.6 percent against the euro and 5.1 percent versus the yen this year as the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to stave off a U.S. economic recession. Oil prices in New York have doubled in the past 12 months, while gold futures jumped 41 percent.

Rogers, who put his New York house on the market in 2006 and now lives in Singapore, said last October he planned to shift all his assets out of the dollar. He predicted last month the currency's decline would pause in the second quarter because it was overdone.

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US central bank accused of unleashing an inflation shock that will rock financial markets, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall "below zero".

"We're in a nasty environment," said Tim Bond, the bank's chief equity strategist. "There is an inflation shock underway. This is going to be very negative for financial assets. We are going into tortoise mood and are retreating into our shell. Investors will do well if they can preserve their wealth."

Barclays Capital said in its closely-watched Global Outlook that US headline inflation would hit 5.5pc by August and the Fed will have to raise interest rates six times by the end of next year to prevent a wage-spiral. If it hesitates, the bond markets will take matters into their own hands. "This is the first test for central banks in 30 years and they have fluffed it. They have zero credibility, and the Fed is negative if that's possible. It has lost all credibility," said Mr Bond.

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