Martin D. Weiss:  My family and I have been tracking speculative bubbles and busts for 80 years. We’ve personally witnessed 12 recessions, two depressions, five stock market crashes, three real estate busts, three bank failure epidemics, and two of the most vicious inflationary spirals of all time. Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:GLD, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:SLV, NYSE:TZA, NYSE:XLF

Sara Nunnally: It is clear the U.S. economy is “too big to fail.” But what happens when that is the only option? You won’t like the answer. Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Michael Snyder: Debt is a “soft” form of slavery.  In America today, it is not legal to bind people up with chains and force them to work for you, but that doesn’t mean that there are not millions upon millions Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Michael Snyder:  The Democrats, the Republicans and especially Barack Obama promised that something would be done about the too big to fail banks so that they would never again be a threat to Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Martin D. Weiss: I rarely recommend that you wade through a wordy speech by an economic theorist delivered to an audience of stuffy bankers. But last week’s address by PIMCO Vice President El-Erian to the St. Louis Fed is one you absolutely MUST not miss. Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:TZA, NYSE:XLF

Don Miller: Based on recent performance from the sector’s biggest names, it’s easy to argue that financial stocks are making a comeback. Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF) is up 27% in 2012. Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) is up 29%. Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) is up a whopping 59%.  Read more…

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Michael Snyder: The U.S. tax code is a complete and utter abomination and it needs to be thrown out entirely.  Nobody in their right mind would ever read the whole thing – it is over 3 million words long.  Each year, Americans spend billions of hours and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to comply with federal tax Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SDS, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:TZA, NYSE:XLF

Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul:  As signs of a real estate market recovery creep back into the monthly data, along with a long-awaited settlement reached in the robo-signing scandal finalized, it appears that underneath the seemingly good news is a second round of foreclosures, instead, spelling more trouble for US Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Martin Hutchinson: Don’t look now but there’s another giant bubble out there. It’s so big it rivals subprime. I’m talking about the student loan bubble.  Recently, the outstanding volume of student loans passed $1 trillion. What’s more bothersome is that the average individual amount owed by new college Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Shah Gilani:  Finally, some well-deserved help for beleaguered monster banks is on its way. Make that, well on its way. Those poor big banks accidentally and inadvertently got caught up making so many easy loans to deserving, hard-up borrowers, who wanted to buy overpriced dream homes, and a few million other Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Michael Snyder:  If you knew that you could live in luxury for the rest of your life but that by doing so it would absolutely destroy the future for your children, your grandchildren and your great- Read more…

NYSE:SPY, NYSE:TZA, NYSE:UUP, NYSE:XLF

Michael Snyder:  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke claims that the Federal Reserve averted a second Great Depression by bailing out the big Wall Street banks during the last financial crisis, and he Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Keith Fitz-Gerald:  In 2008, reckless credit default swaps nearly obliterated the global economy. Now comes the next crisis – rehypothecated assets. It’s a complicated, fancy term in the global banking complex. Yet it’s one you need to know. Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:FAZ, NYSE:SKF, NYSE:XLF

Chris Ciovacco:  Financial stocks (NYSEArca:XLF) had been treading water relative to the S&P 500 (NYSEArca:SPY) for the past six weeks.  That changed late yesterday after J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM) announced a dividend increase and stock buyback program. Read more…

NYSE:FAS, NYSE:SPY, NYSE:XHB, NYSE:XLF

Jeff Nielson: Where did it come from? Where did it go? These are the two principal questions being framed today, after Lord James of Blackheath (a member of the UK House of Lords) unveiled Read more…

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