It’s All Connected: An Overview of the Euro Crisis

European leaders are dealing with growing debt problems that are rattling investors worldwide. 
Here is a visual guide to the crisis......more

And You Thought the Real Estate Bust Was Over

  BY JOHN RUBINO from Financial Sense

"This week all eyes are on Greece and Italy, which is reasonable since they’re likely to be pretty entertaining. But as incredible as it sounds, PIIGS country sovereign debt might not even be the biggest banking-system threat on the immediate horizon. It turns out that the largest European banks have held onto — and apparently failed to mark down — a mountain of crappy paper from the housing bubble

Old Debts Dog Europe’s Banks

European banks are sitting on heaps of exotic mortgage products and other risky assets that predate the financial crisis, adding to pressure on lenders that also are holding large quantities of euro-zone government debt.

Four years after instruments like “collateralized debt obligations” and “leveraged loans” became dirty words because of the massive losses they inflicted on holders, European banks still own tens of billions of euros of such assets. They also have sizable portfolios of U.S. commercial real-estate loans and subprime mortgages that could remain under pressure until the global economy recovers...."

Career Education Shares Plunge, as CEO Resigns; Bellwether for Education Stocks? - Forbes

Career Education Shares Plunge, as CEO Resigns; Bellwether for Education Stocks? - Forbes: "Career Education Corp. and other for-profit colleges like it have been under the microscope lately, with the usual litany of for-profit education allegations: aggressive recruiting techniques, poor job placement rates, and overwhelming student debt.. "

Norton's comment: This is how student loans get ballooned and student abilities to repay go down. Remember the national amount of outstanding student loans is MORE than the total of personal credit card debt! So, these student loan financial co.s and banks....yes our favorite banks are promoting loans which are beyond the clients ability to repay.

Mocking the Poor? Not a good idea!
by Economic Collapse http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

"...There is more economic frustration in this country today than there has been at any other time since the Great Depression.  We are watching pressure build to very dangerous levels.

It is important to note that I certainly do not agree at all with the solutions being put forward by the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street protests.  As I have written about previously, collectivism is one of our biggest problems, and more collectivism is not going to solve anything.

But it is definitely understandable that people are incredibly upset about this economy and that they want to protest.  Most Americans realize that something is fundamentally wrong with our economic system.

Unfortunately, most of them do not understand how we have gotten to this point or what it is going to take to fix things.  That is one of the reasons why I write about economic issues so much.  We desperately need to educate America.

But what is undeniable is that there is a growing rage in this country that protest movements such as the Occupy Wall Street are giving a voice to.

Our system is badly broken.  The people out there protesting in the streets may not understand much, but they do understand that something needs to change.

The Wall Street elite should be taking these protests as a signal that they need to get their house in order.  The status quo just is not going to cut it.  But instead of taking leadership and calling for significant change, many among the elite are openly mocking the protesters.

The incredible arrogance displayed by so many on Wall Street and by so many in Washington D.C. is absolutely appalling...."

Extreme Poverty Is Now At Record Levels – 19 Statistics About The Poor That Will Absolutely Astound You

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty than they have ever measured before.  In 2010, we were told that the economy was recovering, but the truth is that the number of the "very poor" soared to heights never seen previously.  Back in 1993 and back in 2009, the rate of extreme poverty was just over 6 percent, and that represented the worst numbers on record.  But in 2010, the rate of extreme poverty hit a whopping 6.7 percent.  That means that one out of every 15 Americans is now considered to be "very poor".  For many people, this is all very confusing because their guts are telling them that things are getting worse and yet the mainstream media keeps telling them that everything is just fine.  Hopefully this article will help people realize that the plight of the poorest of the poor continues to deteriorate all across the United States.  In addition, hopefully this article will inspire many of you to lend a hand to those that are truly in need.

Tonight, there are more than 20 million Americans ...more Extreme Poverty 19 statistics

Practical Steps for Creating a Self-Sustainable Home | James J Puplava CFP | FINANCIAL SENSE

Practical Steps for Creating a Self-Sustainable Home | James J Puplava CFP | FINANCIAL SENSE

The following transcript comes from a recent interview with Nicole Foss covering a wide range of practical steps and considerations for maintaining a fully or partially-sustainable home. The full audio interview can be accessed here.

Jim Puplava: Joining me on the program is Nicole Foss from the Automatic Earth and Nicole you recently did a video and it is called How I Prepared My Family for Peak Oil. I thought we would start our discussion today because I think one of the factors that we are starting to see right now, with oil prices at $90 in a weak recession along with high unemployment, is we are starting to see the effects of peak oil because you kind of wonder why we are at close to $90 given such weakness. Now some may say that is speculation but, putting that aside for now, I would like to talk about what you did to prepare your family. Now as I understand it Nicole, you sold your house in England in the 1990’s and you bought a farm in Ontario and lets talk about what you did as you discovered peak oil to get your family and prepare for it, what did you do first?..."

Liberty without Virtue
by Arthur Cutten at Jesse's Americain Cafe

"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint."

Edmund Burke

GroupOn = LinkedIn? 

La la la, whatever. La la la, doesn't matter. As cynical an IPO as seen since 1999 they said today.

Where is the MF Global customer money? First it was missing, and then it was not. And then it was lost (or) missing again, and then found at JPM. And then that was denied, and now it seems to be lost at sea in a financial storm of venality.

Maybe Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa took it with them.....

The Economics Of Private Prisons by  NPR
by David Shapiro
"...says that promise of jobs and tax revenue is eerily similar to what some officials in Hardin said back in 2004.

Shapiro, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, is the author of a new ACLU report that's critical of the private prison industry.

Shapiro says it's possible a town could reap some small economic benefits from a private prison, but it may not bring the larger economic boost the county is hoping for..."

....The Next Big Bailout has already started
from Economic Sense

People who leave their money with BoA already know (or should) that they're taking a fair-sized risk. In late September, Moody's dropped the credit rating of the bank's long-term holding company two levels, from A2 to Baa1, and cut its retail bank rating from A2 to Aa3. There are over $1 trillion in deposits still in an institution sitting on a status that is barely north of junk.

"Bank of America is the only US lender that lacks a rating of A3 or higher among the five firms listed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as having the biggest derivatives books," Bloomberg wrote in an October 18 story.

Behind the word "biggest" lies a reality that is truly mind boggling. Bank of America's holding company - the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit - held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. That's trillion, with a T.

And here's the really cool part. Can you guess who's on the hook if that gargantuan derivatives book blows up in BoA's face?

We are.....