http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/107936/US-mortgage-backer-may-need-bailout?mod=loans-home Now, FHA is about to auger in. Let's just send them an extra half tril we don't have. In the upcoming depression, the only thing that will have value is gold and silver and other actual tangible commodities. Real things, like guns. I have been telling friends for six months now, to put at least 20% of their savings in precious metals. I am not a big advocate of actually taking possession or storing precious metals but that is not unreasonable. Why? This is a one way street. It is truly getting close to game over as the bankers steal your tangible possessions with worthless paper. Imagine a country 60 trillion in debt. You simply cannot earn or spend your way out of that type of fiscal mess with interest. And we aren't even the worst. Japan's debt load is 200% of it's GDP. So when does the dollar or the yen collapse? Apparently not yet. Hell if we use Japan as a measuring...

I can't stand it. These Somali pirates are great entertainment. I think they probably attacked this ship knowing full well that it was- a French warship. Perhaps they never knew such a thing actually existed. A ghost ship. They were probably shocked as hell that the French Navy put up any kind of resistance at all. Maybe the worst they expected were some drunken frogs hurling the customary insults or flinging wine bottles at them. Tough luck. Tough luck for me. I can't load the link. BBC is carrying the story. Pirates. French Navy. Keywords. Worth a chuckle.

I've been trading stocks and options most of my adult life. I stopped two years ago and parked all of my money in treasuries. In 2008, I looked like a rock star. This year, not so much. You ever heard that saying, "the stock market predicts economic activity, six months in advance?" The stock market began this big recovery in March. That was seven months ago. Ok, so where is this big recovery? And how come I ain't feeling it? Gosh, with overnight lending rates at zero, you'd think business would be expanding at unprecedented levels. Taking out cheap loans. And how come gold is setting all time highs, trading at 1040? Welcome to the Great Depression, Part Deux. It was 80 years in the making. So what I am going to try to accomplish here is to give you a complete and truthful condensed version of what has happened thus far. The most glaring difference between 1929 and 2008 is the willingness of government to absolutely lie to you. To soothe you and reassure you, patt...

I follow a few blogs. Most of them are listed on the blog roll. I don't have a bazillion folks following what I write. Not yet, anyway. You see, a lot of people don't understand how important blogging is. Blogging is the 2009 version of Paul Revere. It is Upton Sinclair. It is 60 Minutes. It is free speech in the purest sense. Free speech is unity. There is freedom in unity. Bloggers can "monetize" their blogs- which is to say, you invite advertisers into your margins and text. Some bloggers agree to this, thinking that what they have to say is so uniquely attractive and mesmerizing that it is worthy of some justifiable revenue. Perhaps. But once they do that, it is no longer free speech. What they write is paid for speech. I will never monetize a blog of mine. Because the minute you do that, you become a slave to the whims of your advertisers. Telling you what to write, how to write. Viagra ad in my margin. No profanity. Not me. Fuck 'em. I am trying to picture P...

I read an article this weekend that says Hawaii's new state tax tops out at 11%. That is breathtaking all by itself. To qualify for that bracket you must make 400,000 dollars or more. Couple that with a 35% Federal rate and you get a breathtaking 46% tax loss. Throw in another 10% in social security and medicare/medicaid taxes and you are staring at 56%. Wow. More than 1/2 of your income taken away. We're not even talking about all of the other taxes, property, gas taxes, or Hawaii's tax on businesses. It's hard to quantify capital gains taxes, short term gains, inheritance taxes, things like that. So let's take a look at some things I can quantify. I use 2000 gallons of gasoline per year. That costs me 900 bucks in state and federal gas taxes. At 5000.00 a year in groceries, I pay 300 bucks in sales tax. I pay another 600 bucks a year for smokeless tobacco. Idaho has a 40% ad valorem tax on the wholesale price plus the standard 6% sales tax. So that is a nifty litt...