Bubble

The Most Important Number In The Entire U.S. Economy

by

– The Most Important Number In The Entire U.S. Economy (Economic Collapse, Aug 1, 2013):

There is one vitally important number that everyone needs to be watching right now, and it doesn’t have anything to do with unemployment, inflation or housing.  If this number gets too high, it will collapse the entire U.S. financial system.  The number that I am talking about is the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries.

When that number goes up, long-term interest rates all across the financial system start increasing. When long-term interest rates rise, it becomes more expensive for the federal government to borrow money, it becomes more expensive for state and local governments to borrow money, existing bonds lose value and bond investors lose a lot of money, mortgage rates go up and monthly payments on new mortgages rise, and interest rates throughout the entire economy go up and this causes economic activity to slow down.

On top of everything else, there are more than 440 trillion dollars worth of interest rate derivatives sitting out there, and rapidly rising interest rates could cause that gigantic time bomb to go off and implode our entire financial system. We are living in the midst of the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and the only way that the game can continue is for interest rates to stay super low.  Unfortunately, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has started to rise, and many experts are projecting that it is going to continue to rise.

Read moreThe Most Important Number In The Entire U.S. Economy

Barclays Warns ‘End-Of-QE … Would Make 2000 Bubble Look Like A Day At The Beach’ (Video)

by

– Barclays Warns “End-Of-QE.. Would Make 2000 Bubble Look Like A Day At The Beach” (ZeroHedge, July 22, 2013):

“It’s hard to make the case that [US stocks are up 17% on a 2.5% earnings rise] based on fundamentals alone – it’s money in motion,” is how Barclays’ CIO Hans Olsen describes the unreality occurring in US asset markets currently. He noted in last week’s interview with CNBC that Bernanke’s experimentation has created asset-inflation “that would make the stock market bubble of 2000 look like a day at the beach. It’s really quite remarkable.” Critically, as many have noted, he notes “let the market start to price things based on fundamentals again rather than money printing. The sooner we get back to a market pricing, the more sustainable it becomes.” What is ironic is that Olsen is overweight stocks in spite of all this – but like everyone else in the status quo – is hoping Bernanke keeps the house of cards from collapsing. Olsen appears to be among the very few career bankers willing to tell the truth – the fear being, of course (as we showed here) that it would mean their “skills” are completely meaningless. 


Hans Olsen, Chief Investment Officer, Americas at Barclays explains why his group has been engaged in the deliberate retreat and rotation from and within fixed income.

A Nightmare Scenario

by

– A Nightmare Scenario (Economic Collapse, July 17, 2013):

Most people have no idea that the U.S. financial system is on the brink of utter disaster.  If interest rates continue to rise rapidly, the U.S. economy is going to be facing an economic crisis far greater than the one that erupted back in 2008.  At this point, the economic paradigm that the Federal Reserve has constructed only works if interest rates remain super low.  If they rise, everything falls apart.  Much higher interest rates would mean crippling interest payments on the national debt, much higher borrowing costs for state and local governments, trillions of dollars of losses for bond investors, another devastating real estate crash and the possibility of a multi-trillion dollar derivatives meltdown.  Everything depends on interest rates staying low.  Unfortunately for the Fed, it only has a certain amount of control over long-term interest rates, and that control appears to be slipping.  The yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has soared in recent weeks.  So have mortgage rates.  Fortunately, rates have leveled off for the moment, but if they resume their upward march we could be dealing with a nightmare scenario very, very quickly.

In particular, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is a very important number to watch.  So much else in our financial system depends on that number as CNN recently explained…

Read moreA Nightmare Scenario

Fed’s Charles Plosser Admits Fed Was Responsible For Last Housing Bubble, Doesn’t Want To ‘Create Another’

by

– Fed’s Plosser Admits Fed Was Responsible For Last Housing Bubble, Doesn’t Want To “Create Another” (ZeroHedge, July 12, 2013):

The “mutinying” half of the Fed – that which the FOMC minutes indicated wanted an end to QE by the end of 2013 – is not going to take Bernanke’s Wednesday steamrolling lying down. Enter Charles Plosser, who becomes a voting member next year:

  • PLOSSER SAYS FED SHOULD HALT QE BY END OF THIS YEAR

Good luck there. But here is the punchline:

Read moreFed’s Charles Plosser Admits Fed Was Responsible For Last Housing Bubble, Doesn’t Want To ‘Create Another’

The Mother Of All Bubbles Pops, Mess Ensues

by

.- Mother Of All Bubbles Pops, Mess Ensues (Testosterone Pit, July 9, 2013):

The asset bubbles the Fed’s money-printing and bond-buying binge has created are spectacular, the risk-taking on Wall Street with other people’s money a sight to behold. Among the big winners were mortgage Real Estate Investment Trusts – and those who got fat on extracting fees. But now the pendulum is swinging back, and the bloodletting has started.

Mortgage REITs are highly leveraged. They borrow short-term in the repo market at near-zero interest rates, thanks to the Fed, then turn around and buy long-term government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities issued by bailed-out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. Along the way, they issue more stock and borrow even more. By distributing 90% of their profits, they avoid having to pay income taxes. Hence double-digit dividends. A phenomenal business model. Instead of getting their hands dirty in the real economy, they manufacture dividends, fees, and all sorts of goodies for insiders – while the party lasts.

But now the Fed, leery of the risks these drunken partiers were taking on, knocked on the door of that party and threatened to crash it. Annaly Capital Management, the largest mortgage REIT with $126 billion in assets as of March 31, dropped 34% from its September high to $11.53 on Wednesday; most of it since mid-March. American Capital Agency, the second largest, is even better: its entire history is linked to the Fed’s zero-interest-rate policy and money-printing binge.

Read moreThe Mother Of All Bubbles Pops, Mess Ensues

Housing Bubble Stage Two: Blackstone To Lend To Others For ‘Buy To Rent’

by

– Stage Two of the Housing Bubble Begins: Blackstone to Lend to Others for “Buy to Rent” (Liberty Blitzkrieg, July 8, 2013):

As we all know, any good ponzi scheme needs a continued stream of new investors in order to keep it going otherwise the whole thing falls apart.  We also know that the current rebound in the U.S. housing market is a centrally planned monster, led by private equity firms with access to cheap money and laundered foreign capital flooding into depressed markets, crowding out American families looking to purchase a home. Well now that Blackstone has spent more than $5 billion in its “buy-to-rent” scheme, it wants others to be able to “participate” in this wonderful investment opportunity (after them of course).  Oh and by the way, one of the most common ads on the local radio here in Boulder as of late explains to people how they too can “get in” on the buy-to-rent trade.  Best of luck.

From Bloomberg:

Blackstone Group LP, the private-equity firm that has spent $5 billion on more than 30,000 distressed houses, is preparing to expand its bet on the housing recovery by lending to other landlords.

The firm, which already owns more rental homes than any other investor, has set up B2R Finance LP to offer loans starting at $10 million, according to four people who reviewed the terms. B2R is reaching out to landlords with portfolios of properties seeking to grow in the burgeoning industry for single-family homes to rent, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

At least five rental companies have received non-binding term sheets from B2R, according to the people. Jeffrey Tennyson, the former chief executive officer of mortgage originator EquiFirst Corp., is running the firm, which stands for buy-to-rent. He previously led EquiFirst to become the 12th-largest wholesale subprime lender in the U.S. by 2007, when Barclays Bank PLC bought it. The London-based bank closed the business two years later after the market collapsed.

Read moreHousing Bubble Stage Two: Blackstone To Lend To Others For ‘Buy To Rent’

You Are In The Ponzi Scheme Whether You Realize It Or Not (Video)

by

– You Are In The Ponzi Scheme Whether You Realize It Or Not (Monty Pelerin’s World, July 2, 2013):

The reasons for continuing to participate in stock markets are discussed in this video from Gordon T. Long and John Rubino. It all comes down to liquidity (and little else).The liquidity fraud is well advanced and likely will continue. This worldwide Ponzi scheme, engineered by governments, provides massive risks and opportunities. For those who don’t understand what is occurring, there is much to be gained from this presentation.

Mr. Rubino describes the problem the Fed’s liquidity has created. Bubbles are re-inflating just as they did prior to the 2008 collapse. Why shouldn’t they? The exact same scam is being perpetrated by government.  Another collapse will eventually occur, but its timing and form can only be speculated on.

Rubino does a good job of explaining Ludwig von Mises’  ”crack-up boom” which will ultimately destroy fiat currencies. That end leads to extremely high, probably hyper, inflation. The pieces are already in place for this outcome. All that has to happen is for banks to begin normal lending or for people to understand what is happening (or going to happen) to the value of currency. Something will ignite the timber.

Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff had to lure marks into their scams. People joined them by choice. The Ponzi scheme operated by governments is mandatory. You are in it whether you want to be or not. You are in it whether you realize it or not. The only issue is to decide is what the best way is to play this Ponzi scheme. Long and Rubino discuss your options.


YouTube

Controlling The Implosion Of The Biggest Bond Bubble In History

by

– Controlling The Implosion Of The Biggest Bond Bubble In History (Testosterone Pit, June 22, 2013):

In theory, the Fed could continue to print money and buy Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, or even pure junk, at the current rate of $85 billion a month until the bitter end. But the bitter end would be unpleasant even for those that the Fed represents – and now they’re speaking up publicly.

“Savers have paid a huge price in this recovery,” was how Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf phrased it on Thursday – a sudden flash of empathy, after nearly five years of Fed policies that pushed interest rates on savings accounts and CDs below inflation, a form of soft confiscation, of which he and his TBTF bank were prime beneficiaries. That interest rates were rising based on Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s insinuation of a taper was “a good thing,” he told CNBC. “We need to get back to normal.”

A week earlier, it was Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: “Eventually interest rates have to normalize,” he said. “It’s not normal to have 2% rates.”

They weren’t worried about savers – to heck with them. They weren’t worried about inflation either. They were worried about the system, their system. It might break down if the bond bubble were allowed to continue inflating only to implode suddenly in an out-of-control manner. It would threaten their empires. That would be the bitter end.

Read moreControlling The Implosion Of The Biggest Bond Bubble In History

Ron Paul: ‘It’s Going to Get Much, Much Worse’ (June 9, 2013)

by


YouTube

– Ron Paul: It’s Going to Get Much, Much Worse (Peak Prosperity, June 10,2013):

Dr. Ron Paul has long been a leading voice for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, sound money, civil liberty, and non-interventionist foreign policies.

His last term in the U.S. House of Representatives ended earlier this year, so we caught up with the former Congressman to get his latest perspective on how successfully our national leadership is dealing with America’s economic challenges.

In Dr. Paul’s assessment, Washington is too committed to deficit spending and the debt-based economy – both operationally and philosophically – to expect it to embrace a more fiscally-responsible model without a forcing crisis (which he believes is coming):

Read moreRon Paul: ‘It’s Going to Get Much, Much Worse’ (June 9, 2013)

Marc Faber: ‘People With Financial Assets Are All Doomed’

by

– Marc Faber: “People With Financial Assets Are All Doomed” (ZeroHedge, June 1, 2013):

As Barron’s notes in this recent interview, Marc Faber view the world with a skeptical eye, and never hesitates to speak his mind when things don’t look quite right. In other words, he would be the first in a crowd to tell you the emperor has no clothes, and has done so early, often, and aptly in the case of numerous investment bubbles. With even the world’s bankers now concerned at ‘unsustainable bubbles’, it is therefore unsurprising that in the discussion below, Faber explains, among other things, the fallacy of the Fed’s help “the problem is the money doesn’t flow into the system evenly, how with money-printing “the majority loses, and the minority wins,” and how, thanks to the further misallocation of capital, “people with assets are all doomed, because prices are grossly inflated globally for stocks and bonds.” Faber says he buys gold every month, adding that “I want to have some assets that aren’t in the banking system. When the asset bubble bursts, financial assets will be particularly vulnerable.”

Excerpted from Barron’s:

On the error of the Fed’s ways:

Read moreMarc Faber: ‘People With Financial Assets Are All Doomed’

Student Loan Bubble? Just Discharge It!

by

– Student Loan Bubble? Just Discharge It (ZeroHedge, May 28, 2013):

By now everyone knows that the biggest portion of US household debt, besides mortgage debt, is a towering $1+ trillion in student loans, more than total outstanding credit cards or car loans, which is problematic for three main reasons: it is increasing at an unprecedented pace due to lax Federal lending standards, delinquent loans are soaring and are now well over $100 billion and rising at a pace of tens of billions each quarter, and it can not be discharged. At least that is conventional wisdom. But while points 1 and 2 are indisputable (and deteriorating), it is point 3 that is the more troubling for an entire generation of young men and women who are afraid to splurge on levered purchases such as houses due to an already insurmountable debt overhang, and a job market that is hardly hospitable to young entrants. Luckily, there may now be solution stamped in US case law.

Read moreStudent Loan Bubble? Just Discharge It!

Haunted By The Last Housing Bubble, Fitch Warns ‘Gains Are Outpacing Fundamentals’

by

Related info:

– NYT On The Housing Recovery: ‘Homes See Biggest Price Gain in Years, Propelling Stocks’ – ZeroHedge: 3 Big Banks Halt Foreclosures In May, Keeping The ‘Recovery’ Dream Alive

– Haunted By The Last Housing Bubble, Fitch Warns “Gains Are Outpacing Fundamentals” (ZeroHedge, May 28, 2013):

The last week has seen quite dramatic drops in the prices of a little-discussed but oh-so-critical asset-class in the last housing bubble’s ‘pop’. Having just crossed above ‘Lehman’ levels, ABX (residential) and CMBX (commercial) credit indices have seen their biggest weekly drop in 20 months as both rates and credit concerns appear to be on the rise. Perhaps it is this price action that has spooked Fitch’s structured products team, or simply the un-sustainability (as we discussed here, here and here most recently) that has the ratings agency on the defensive, noting that, “the recent home price gains recorded in several residential markets are outpacing improvements in fundamentals and could stall or possibly reverse.” Simply put, “demand is artificially high… and supply is artificially low.”

Read moreHaunted By The Last Housing Bubble, Fitch Warns ‘Gains Are Outpacing Fundamentals’

NYT On The Housing Recovery: ‘Homes See Biggest Price Gain in Years, Propelling Stocks’ – ZeroHedge: 3 Big Banks Halt Foreclosures In May, Keeping The ‘Recovery’ Dream Alive

by

What can you say?

– Homes See Biggest Price Gain in Years, Propelling Stocks (New York Times, May 28, 2013):

Americans are in a buying mood, thanks largely to the housing recovery.

The latest sign emerged Tuesday as the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index posted the biggest gains in seven years. Housing prices rose in every one of the 20 cities tracked, continuing a trend that began three months ago. Similar strength has appeared in new and existing home sales and in building permits, as rising home prices are encouraging construction firms to accelerate building and hiring.

The broad-based housing improvements appear to be buoying consumer confidence and spending, countering fears earlier this year that many consumers would pull back in response to government austerity measures.

…

– Keeping The ‘Recovery’ Dream Alive; 3 Big Banks Halt Foreclosures In May (ZeroHedge, May 28, 2013):

What is the only thing better than Foreclosure Stuffing to provide an artificial supply-side subsidy to the housing market? How about completely clogging the foreclosure pipeline, by halting all foreclosure sales, which is just what the three TBTF megabanks: Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and Citi have done in recent weeks. Under the guise of ‘ensuring late-stage foreclosure procedures were in accordance with guidelines’, the LA Times reports that these three banks paused sales on May 6th and all but halted foreclosures. Perfectly organic housing recovery – as we noted earlier… and guess what states the greatest number of ‘halts’ are in from these banks – California, Nevada, Arizona – exactly where the surges in price have occurred.

Via The LA Times,

Sales of homes in foreclosure by Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. ground nearly to a halt after regulators revised their orders on treatment of troubled borrowers during the 60 days before they lose their homes.

Read moreNYT On The Housing Recovery: ‘Homes See Biggest Price Gain in Years, Propelling Stocks’ – ZeroHedge: 3 Big Banks Halt Foreclosures In May, Keeping The ‘Recovery’ Dream Alive

America’s Giant Bubble Economy Is Going To Become An Economic Black Hole

by

– America’s Bubble Economy Is Going To Become An Economic Black Hole (Economic Collapse, May 22, 2013):

What is going to happen when the greatest economic bubble in the history of the world pops?  The mainstream media never talks about that.  They are much too busy covering the latest dogfights in Washington and what Justin Bieber has been up to.  And most Americans seem to think that if the Dow keeps setting new all-time highs that everything must be okay.  Sadly, that is not the case at all.  Right now, the U.S. economy is exhibiting all of the classic symptoms of a bubble economy.  You can see this when you step back and take a longer-term view of things.  Over the past decade, we have added more than 10 trillion dollars to the national debt.  But most Americans have shown very little concern as the balance on our national credit card has soared from 6 trillion dollars to nearly 17 trillion dollars.  Meanwhile, Wall Street has been transformed into the biggest casino on the planet, and much of the new money that the Federal Reserve has been recklessly printing up has gone into stocks.  But the Dow does not keep setting new records because the underlying economic fundamentals are good.  Rather, the reckless euphoria that we are seeing in the financial markets right now reminds me very much of 1929.  Margin debt is absolutely soaring, and every time that happens a crash rapidly follows.  But this time when a crash happens it could very well be unlike anything that we have ever seen before.  The top 25 U.S. banks have more than 212 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives combined, and when that house of cards comes crashing down there is no way that anyone will be able to prop it back up.  After all, U.S. GDP for an entire year is only a bit more than 15 trillion dollars.

But most Americans are only focused on the short-term because the mainstream media is only focused on the short-term.  Things are good this week and things were good last week, so there is nothing to worry about, right?

Read moreAmerica’s Giant Bubble Economy Is Going To Become An Economic Black Hole

Ron Paul: Federal Reserve Blows More Bubbles – ‘This Is A House Of Cards’

by

– Federal Reserve Blows More Bubbles (The Free Foundation, by Ron Paul):

Last week at its regular policy-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve announced it would double down on the policies that have failed to produce anything but a stagnant economy. It was a disappointing, but not surprising, move.

The Fed affirmed that it is prepared to increase its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities if things don’t start looking up. But actually the Fed has already been buying more than the announced $85 billion per month. Between February and March, the Fed’s securities holdings increased $95 billion. From March to April, they increased $100 billion. In all, the Fed has pumped more than a half trillion dollars into the economy since announcing its latest round of “quantitative easing” (QE3) in September 2012.

Read moreRon Paul: Federal Reserve Blows More Bubbles – ‘This Is A House Of Cards’

Netherlands Is Underwater In More Ways Than One: Unemployment Surges – Home Prices Collapse – Banks Have Total Of €650 Billion In Mortgage Loans On Their Books

by

From the article:

… house prices fell by -8% in the year to December 2012 to be down -18% since prices peaked in 2008, pulling many Dutch households into negative equity …

– Netherlands on Edge of Economic Crisis; Unemployment Surges as Home Prices Collapse (Global Economic Analysis, April 21, 2013):

Netherlands is underwater in more ways than one. Der Spiegel reports Underwater: The Netherlands Falls Prey to Economic Crisis

More than a decade ago, the Dutch central bank recognized the dangers of [the housing] euphoria, but its warnings went unheeded. Only last year did the new government, under conservative-liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte, amend the generous tax loopholes, which gradually began to expire in January. But now it’s almost too late. No nation in the euro zone is as deeply in debt as the Netherlands, where banks have a total of about €650 billion in mortgage loans on their books.

Consumer debt amounts to about 250 percent of available income. By comparison, in 2011 even the Spaniards only reached a debt ratio of 125 percent.

The Netherlands is still one of the most competitive countries in the European Union, but now that the real estate bubble has burst, it threatens to take down the entire economy with it. Unemployment is on the rise, consumption is down and growth has come to a standstill.

Even €46 billion in austerity measures are apparently not enough to remain within the EU debt limit. Although [Dutch Finance Minister and Euro Group Chief] Jeroen Dijsselbloem has announced another €4.3 billion in cuts in public service and healthcare, they will only take effect in 2014.

“Sticking the knife in even more deeply” would be “very, very unreasonable,” Social Democrat Dijsselbloem told German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in an attempt to justify the delay.

Dijsselbloem’s Hypocrisy

Read moreNetherlands Is Underwater In More Ways Than One: Unemployment Surges – Home Prices Collapse – Banks Have Total Of €650 Billion In Mortgage Loans On Their Books

Bill Fleckenstein Of Fleckenstein Capital: Hold Tight To Your Gold (Video)

by


Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Bill Fleckenstein (28m:26s)

– Bill Fleckenstein: Hold Tight To Your Gold (PeakProsperity, April 21, 2013):

Why it’s going to go “one hell of a lot” higher

The bond market is an accident waiting to happen.

When the bond market finally does crack, it is going to be one epic nightmare that is going to make 2008 and 2009 seem like a picnic. It will be a different kind of a crisis; but it will be an enormous crisis. These people that are bullish about stocks and bonds and the bond market, they do not understand anything.

We will hit a moment in time where there will be a rapid acceleration of the perception that people are being cheated via inflation by these money-printing policies. Why Americans seem to think there is no inflation just because the CPI says so, when their checkbooks every day ought to tell them there is, I cannot explain that. But there will be a change in psychology, and there will be a massive stampede into gold here and everywhere else around the world, because it is the only way you can protect yourself against these policies.

Pity the wise money manager these days. Our juiced-up financial markets, force-fed liquidity by the Fed the other major world central banks, are pushing asset prices far beyond what the fundamentals merit.

If you see this reckless central planning behavior for what it is – a deluded attempt to avoid reality for as long as possible – your options are limited if you take your fiduciary duty to your clients seriously.

Read moreBill Fleckenstein Of Fleckenstein Capital: Hold Tight To Your Gold (Video)

The Banksters Are Recklessly Gambling With Our Money, Causing The Global Financial System To Collapse

by

– The Big Banks Are Recklessly Gambling With Our Money, And It Will Cause The Global Financial System To Collapse (Economic Collapse, April 2, 2013):

Have you ever wondered how the big banks make such enormous mountains of money?  Well, the truth is that much of it is made by gambling recklessly.  If they win on their bets, they become fabulously wealthy.  If they lose on their bets, they know that the government will come in and arrange for the banks to be bailed out because they are “too big to fail”.  Either they will be bailed out by the government using our tax dollars, or as we just witnessed in Cyprus, they will be allowed to “recapitalize” themselves by stealing money directly from our bank accounts.  So if they win, they win big.  If they lose, someone else will come in and clean up the mess.  This creates a tremendous incentive for the bankers to “go for it”, because there is simply not enough pain in this equation for those that are taking the risks.  If the big Wall Street banks had been allowed to collapse back in 2008, that would have caused a massive change of behavior on Wall Street.  But instead, the big banks are still recklessly gambling with our money as if the last financial crisis never even happened.  In the end, the reckless behavior of these big banks is going to cause the entire global financial system to collapse.

Have you noticed how most news reports about Cyprus don’t even get into the reasons why the big banks in Cyprus collapsed?

Well, the truth is that they collapsed because they were making incredibly reckless bets with the money that had been entrusted to them.  In a recent article, Ron Paul explained how the situation played out once the bets started to go bad…

Read moreThe Banksters Are Recklessly Gambling With Our Money, Causing The Global Financial System To Collapse

Holland: ‘An Economy On The Brink’

by

– Holland: “An Economy On The Brink” (ZeroHedge, April 2, 2013):

Infamous for little boys plugging holes with their fingers and grown-ups plugging their mouth with their foot (D-Boom), it seems Holland, Berlin’s most important ally in the goal of greater fiscal discipline in Europe, has fallen into an economic crisis itself. As Spiegel reports, the once exemplary economy is suffering from huge debts and a burst real estate bubble, which has stalled growth and endangered jobs.

The statistics make for some worrisome reading: no nation in the euro zone is as deeply in debt as the Netherlands, where banks have a total of about €650 billion in mortgage loans on their books; consumer debt amounts to about 250% of available income – by comparison, in 2011 even the Spaniards only reached a debt ratio of 125%; unemployment is on the rise; consumption is down; and growth has come to a standstill.

The trouble for Holland is that despite their proclamations of the need for Fiscal conservatism, even EUR46 billion in austerity measures are apparently not enough to keep the nation’s deficit within the EU debt limit. The Dutch were long among Europe’s most diligent savers, and in the crisis many are holding onto their money even more tightly, which is also toxic to the economy, as “one of the main problems is declining consumption.”

The nationalization on SNS in February brought this reality home and as Spiegel reports, “there is no end to the crisis in sight.”

Source: Spiegel

Presenting The College Whose Graduates Have A 62% Student Loan Default Rate

by

– Presenting The College Whose Graduates Have A 62% Student Loan Default Rate (ZeroHedge, Feb 19, 2013):

It is common knowledge by now that the US has a student loan problem. Specifically, a subprime-sized, student loan default problem, which as was reported last year, has now surpassed a 23% default rate at “for profit” institutions. Yet as all statistical measures, this one too deals in means and medians: very boring, impersonal metrics. Where the truly stunning data emerge is when one performs a granular college by college analysis of the US higher learning system, which is precisely what the WSJ has done, breaking down some 3500 colleges and universities by annual cost, graduation rate, median amount borrowed and most importantly, student-loan default rate. In this context we feel quite bad for the students who graduate from ICPR Junior College of Puerto Rico (or rather the 52% of them who graduate), with a modest $2,250 in student loans to cover the otherwise manageable tuition of $7,158, as a mindboggling 62% of them end up defaulting on their loans!

…

Student Loan Bubble Forces Yale And Pennsylvania University To Sue Their Own Students

by

– Student Loan Bubble Forces Yale, Penn To Sue Their Own Students (ZeroHedge, Feb 5, 2013):

We have not been shy about exposing the massive (and unsustainable) bubble of credit being blown into the economy via Student Loans from the government. We have not been afraid to note the dramatic rise in delinquencies among these loans – and the implications for the government. However, as Bloomberg reports, it appears the impact of this exuberance has come back to bite the colleges themselves. In what can only be described as a vendor-financing model, the so-called Perkins loans (for students with extraordinary financial hardships) have seen defaults surging more than 20%. The vicious circle, though, has begun as the ponzi of using these revolving loan funds to ‘fund’ the next round of students is collapsing thanks to the rise in delinquencies. Schools such as Yale, Penn, and George Washington are becoming very aggressive at going after delinquent student borrowers. While financially hard-up graduates complain of no jobs, the schools are not impressed: “You could take a job at Subway or wherever to pay the bills … It seems like basic responsibility to me,” but perhaps that is the point – avoiding responsibility is seemingly rewarded in the new normal.

Via Bloomberg,

Yale Suing Former Students Shows Crisis in Loans to Poor

Needy U.S. borrowers are defaulting on almost $1 billion in federal student loans earmarked for the poor, leaving schools such as Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania with little choice except to sue their graduates.

The record defaults on federal Perkins loans may jeopardize the prospects of current students since they are part of a revolving fund that colleges give to students who show extraordinary financial hardship.

Read moreStudent Loan Bubble Forces Yale And Pennsylvania University To Sue Their Own Students