Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
“Unmitigated Disaster”
July 14th, 2008U.S. taxpayers and dollar holders are essentially going to eat the real estate crisis. —EMERGENCY: U.S. GOVERNMENT TO TAKE “UNLIMITED STAKES” IN FANNIE AND FREDDIE Via: Bloomberg: The U.S. Treasury Department’s plan to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is an “unmitigated disaster” and the largest U.S. mortgage lenders are “basically insolvent,” according to […]
Run On Banks Spells Big Trouble for U.S. Treasury
July 14th, 2008Via: Sydney Morning Herald: IN A modern financial system nothing is more frightening than a run on the bank. The US has now suffered a series of them, and they are escalating in size and scope, posing a serious threat to an already reeling economy. Rumours swamped financial markets on Friday that the US Government […]
EMERGENCY: U.S. GOVERNMENT TO TAKE “UNLIMITED STAKES” IN FANNIE AND FREDDIE
July 14th, 2008WARNING: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument. The firms that make the mortgage industry possible in the U.S. are about to be taken onto the books of the U.S. Government. I don’t know of any clearer way of summing it up. In all of my years of observing […]
Gas Arbitrage Along U.S./Mexico Border
July 13th, 2008Via: Reuters: U.S. and Mexican entrepreneurs with an eye for a quick buck are buying subsidized fuel in bulk in Mexico and hauling it across the U.S. border to make big profits, officials say. With a yawning gap between the cost of Mexico’s state-subsidized fuel and record U.S. pump prices, tanker truck owners and people […]
Fuel Theft Crime Wave Sweeps Scotland as Petrol Prices Soar
July 13th, 2008Via: Sunday Herald: SCOTLAND IS in the grip of a new crime wave with organised thieves stealing tens of thousands of litres of fuel each day from farms, homes and petrol stations across the country. Record oil prices have made fuel a targeted commodity for gangs of criminals. Thieves are reselling the stolen fuel through […]
Desk Rage Spoils Workplace for Many Americans
July 11th, 2008The powers of ordinary men are circumscribed by the everyday worlds in which they live, yet even in these rounds of job, family, and neighborhood they often seem driven by forces they can neither understand nor govern. ‘Great changes’ are beyond their control, but affect their conduct and outlook none the less. The very framework […]
UK: Government Asks Stores to Stockpile Food in Case of Infrastructure Breakdown
July 7th, 2008Via: Times: Ministers are in talks with supermarkets about emergency food reserves in case fuel protests lead to shortages at shops. The government wants to ensure retailers and suppliers can continue to sell basics such as meat, bread and milk if hauliers bring the country to a halt. They have asked supermarkets to make contingency […]
“The Foreclosure Chart for Los Angeles Is Unfortunately Starting to Look Like a Ski Jump”
July 3rd, 2008Via: Bloomberg: New foreclosures almost quadrupled in Los Angeles and doubled in Miami in the second quarter, with as much as $5 billion worth of loans going bad in L.A. alone, the online real estate data company PropertyShark.com reported. The number of homes scheduled for auction in Los Angeles rose 14,505 compared with 3,797 in […]
Fed-Up Families Turn To Barbed Wire, Shotguns To Police Neighborhood
July 2nd, 2008Via: Local6: Families in a crime-ridden Central Florida neighborhood are arming themselves with shotguns and talking about adding electric barbed wire to stop thieves targeting their homes. “Somebody is going to end up getting hurt,” resident Andrea Fine said. “The homeowners are tense. We are all on edge. For the first time in my life […]
Vacant Homes Spread Blight in Suburb and City Alike
July 2nd, 2008Via: Christian Science Monitor: In Mesa, Ariz., officials are trying to decide what to do about boarded-up McMansions that become party pads, trashed in raucous “raves” where invitations come by text message. In Atlanta, thieving from abandoned properties is so bad that police caught one man building a new house entirely of pilfered materials from […]
