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Showing posts with label causes of economic recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label causes of economic recession. Show all posts

Sunday, October 3, 2010

US Banking: A Deepening Foreclosure Crisis - From The Global Futurist

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Note: This article was written by author Douglas Castle (http://aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com/, and http://www.linkedin.com/in/DouglasCastle) for the Global Futurist with rights for reprinting available though TNNWC Group, LLC.


Become a Member of TNNWC Group and receive your free publications, bulletins and updates, as well as access to TNNWC's unparalleled Suite of Services for Entrepreneurs, Emerging Enterprises, Small Businesses and Growing Companies by clicking on http://www.tnnwcgroup.com/ .


US Banking: A Deepening Foreclosure Crisis - From THE GLOBAL FUTURIST


Dear Friends and Colleagues:



It would seem that there is mixed news to report, and some unsettling possible implications for the near-term (the next 18 months) which will impact every homeowner, selling homeowner and prospective home buyer...not to mention the US economy-at-large and, to a lesser degree, the economies of other industrialized countries in Europe.

A recent article published by Truthout (a publication of BuzzFlash Media) indicates that an increasing number of major US and international banks with mortgages (or which are invested in the mortgage-backed securities produced by the process called "securitization") are ceasing or indefinitely postponing foreclosures.

"Why are they doing this?" you may ask. It is certainly not out of clemency or decency -- it is because of a great number of legal irregularities, fraudulent actions, and a shipload of other complications relating to the way in which the banks, their servicers and their third-party securitization agencies (a Wall Street Family-type affair) created the mortgages, packaged the mortgages, re-sold the mortgages, abused the mortgagors (the people in debt), and went about the business of trying to recover some of their losses by seizing the assets which they thought collateralized their loans and selling them off. Many law firms ("mortgage mills") have played a role in the these slapdash, illegal and downright unconscionable fraud. Some many parties profited at so many different levels -- all at the cost and peril of the consumer.

For a time, at least, for this whole cast of characters, crime certainly did pay. It was not really finance; it was sophisticated, systematized thievery. The US consumers will ultimately pay (AGAIN) for the excessive arrogance, gluttony and greed of "banks" and "investment banking houses".

We all know that if a bank is stuck with a large portfolio of non-performing mortgages (and all of the large banks are), and can't get rid of them "hot-potato" style by selling them to some government agency, passing them off like counterfeit bills to other banks, or by foreclosing on them and reselling them to recover some percentage of of their losses, they are in deeper trouble than ever before.

What you'll hear: "Bank foreclosures are slowing down, and many banks are delaying foreclosure proceedings!" "YAY!"

What Douglas Castle says: "Banks are in far worse shape than had been previously thought, and the availability of financing for new and used home purchases will be further stoppered up, further cratering the home sales market, home prices and further steepening and prolonging  the profound economic recession in the US." "NAY".

The banks are going to be screaming for another bailout or legal relief, as an increasing number of homeowners are taking them to court, title companies are refusing to issue title insurance, and other participants in the process are becoming frightened and frozen. The banks brought this upon themselves.

The question is, in what manner will the US government try to "fix" this new revelation? Just imagine....banks unable to foreclose.

Here's what to do...

First, read the article. Second, enjoy the video. Third, read what I believe that the near-term issues will be -- near-term issues affecting every single one of us.
---------------

Shock Therapy for Wall Street: JPMorgan Suspends 56,000 Foreclosures; GMAC and BOA Many More
Ellen Brown, WebofDebt.com: "On September 28, JPMorgan Chase said it was halting 56,000 foreclosures because some of its employees might have improperly prepared the necessary documents. All of the suspensions were in the 23 states where foreclosures require court approval."

Read the Article


Video Follows: (If the video player doesn't appear, simply click on the hyperlink below in order to see it):
What to expect - The Global Futurist 18-Month Forecast:
1) A deepening credit crunch from all conventional lending sources, with stiffer credit criteria and more draconian documentation required than ever before. Simply put; no re-negotiated terms, no new mortage funds for mortals, no refinancings, more unemployment in the banking services sector, even poorer customer service (if this is actually possible). Banks are all but completely out of the lending business, as will be most consumer loan financing companies, except the ones which are captive or dedicated to the financing or leasing of automobiles.

2) A cutback in all conventional lending activities;

3) Increases (despite the consumer-protection laws) in all types of non-loan related banking fees, in true predatory fashion, to make up for some of these losses and to create some income and liquidity, especially in terms of credit cards and other bank "services" and "privileges."

4) Further declines in home values due to the absense of credit to facilitate liquidity in the market;

5) Downward pressure on the price of major publicly-traded bank stocks; not to worry, though...those executive bonuses being paid to these too-big-to-fail fraudsters will continue and will increase;

6) A further decline in the value of the US dollar versus other currencies;

7) A decline in the sovereign debt rating of the United States;

8) More money finding its way out of the US banking system and securities markets into alternative and less-known investments involving, ETFs ("exchange-traded funds"), physical gold, foreign currencies, and direct participations in select entrepreneurial deals (cash flow generating private placements, and similar arrangements).

I wish that I had better news.

The silver lining: If your bank forestalls a foreclosure on your home, you will enjoy the basic benefit of shelter for a while longer.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle
Douglas Castle
Toll-Free Telephone: 888.317.6498
Facsimile: 914.517.5944
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Friday, July 23, 2010

Ben Bernanke Speaks In Somber Tones - Douglas Castle Predicts The Effects.

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Ben Bernanke Speaks In Somber Tones - Douglas Castle Predicts The Effects.














Ben Bernanke Sets A Somber Tone for the U.S. Economic "Recovery." -- Perhaps this is a pre-emptive political strike against allegations of fraud... hmmm..... 

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

I am not fond of Ben Bernanke, nor of his knee-jerk, symptomatic relief reactions, duplicity and delay policies. In fact, when a prestigious New York magazine named this bailout baron "Man of the Year," for keeping the US out of a "dangerous recession," I had mentioned to a handful of friends (that's about as many as I have) that the award was rather like having an arsonist set fire to your house, watching it burn for awhile, and then running in to rescue one of your five children... and winning a medal for courage. Sadly, many have believed in Bernanke's intrusive policies, taxpayer-crushing bailouts, backroom merger deals to merely forestall the inevitable, his philosophy of borrowing our way out of debt (sounds screwy, no?) and his notably uncharismatic "positive yet cautious" tone. If he's not delusional, he is merely a rather cold-hearted fibber trying to buy the current US economy and the current administration time to somehow "come around" based upon miracles and propaganda.

It's failed.

Banks aren't lending to consumers and small businesses. Joblessness (the true measure of unemployment) continues to climb. Productivity is also decreasing, great minds are leaving the country (as are many jobs), and businesses are seeking other home domiciles in order to 1), get cheaper labor -- the kind where people work for a wage instead of waiting for a government check, and to 2), escape before taxes in the US become impossibly burdensome and back-breaking in order  to pay for the government's irresponsible policymaking.

Compounding the problem, is the influence that the US still exerts over the World economy -- It's what I like to refer to as the "Weapons Of Mass Destruction hoakum, trap 'em and choke 'em" routine.

The following news, excerpted from a newsletter issued by David Weiss speaks about about Bernanke's latest, most realistic declaration of the unpleasant truth, as the US slides (as do all major sovereigns) into a double dip recession that is actually a profound, fundamental depression:

Breaking news:
Bernanke slams U.S. economy! What to do ...
MONEY AND MARKETS »
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.


Dear Mr. Castle, Global Futurist:
Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.
A momentous event just occurred this afternoon:
For the first time in many years, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve went before Congress, set aside his rose-colored glasses, dispensed with most of his sugar-coated platitudes and made some hard-hitting statements about the U.S. economy.
Bernanke on jobs:
"This is the worst labor market since the Great Depression."
Bernanke on housing:
"The market remains weak, with the overhang of vacant or foreclosed houses weighing on home prices and construction."
Bernanke on fears about the future:
"Most ... viewed uncertainty about the outlook for growth and unemployment as greater than normal, and the majority saw the risks to growth as weighted to the downside."
Bernanke on tight credit for small businesses:
"Bank loans outstanding have continued to contract. Small businesses, which depend importantly on bank credit, have been particularly hard hit."
And never forget: All this is coming from a man whose job invariably makes him extremely reluctant to admit to negative trends in any sector at any time — if Bernanke is saying things are bad, you can bet your bottom dollar they're actually far worse.
Our recommendation:
  1. Act on our warnings to greatly reduce your exposure to the stock market, especially in the sectors we've been pinpointing as vulnerable to a double-dip recession: Housing and construction, retail, manufacturing, banking and more.
  2. Keep most of your money safely tucked away in short-term Treasury bills or equivalent. The return on your money (no matter how low) is not nearly as big of an issue as the return OF your money.
  3. To hedge against any threat to the purchasing power of your dollars, maintain a core position in gold — through bullion, a gold ETF or both.
  1. Above all, stay safe!
Good luck and God bless!




------------------

AND NOW, MY PREDICTIONS CONCERNING WHAT THIS ACTUALLY MEANS FOR THE UNITED STATES, AND GLOBALLY (AT A SLIGHT LAG). DOUGLAS CASTLE PROGNOSTICATES:

1. Citizens are buying up weapons and ammunition for both home and street protection in anticipation of rampant crime -- some of them (mostly the militia crowd) are stockpiling military ordnance to defend themselves against a giant government that is growing in its fiscal appetite and its vampirical bloodfest off of the public at a neoplastic rate, unchecked, unstoppable and infinitely powerful.

2.  Unemployment (non-government unemployment) will continue to rise as the availablity of credit for smaller business and for consumers shrinks.

3. Occasional upticks in consumer spending will be the sad result of a combination of factors, including:
  • Interest rates on bank instruments are too low relative to the real rate of inflation -- there is less incentive to save and more to consume;
  • Pension plans and capital markets (principally equities and index-based funds) are either a) too volatile for a person of  average cardiac capacity to monitor and tolerate or b) are steadily eroding legitimately-earned principal;
  • Consumers buy durable goods on interest-free layaway plans from large stores that are eventually going to go out of business but need to book current sales;
  • An increasing portion of spending is going toward gambling-related activities, substance abuse (escapism), and frivolous consumption ["since the world is going to end tomorrow, I might as well buy a pepperoni pizza"];
  • The release of new media/communications gadgetry.
None of this is positive, none of it is economically supportive, and all of it reeks of fatalism.

4.  Cooperative consumer movements and anti-government sentiment will be on the rise as an alternative to and a protest against irresponsible and immensely expensive government doles and metastically-growing, amoral monopolistic conglomerates;

5. The notion of community will begin to return as more public services are weakened or discontinued;

6. The IRS will be all the more vigilant in its efforts to audit, assess and repossess in order to assist the government in narrowing and ever-increasing national debt;

7.  The underground (cash economy) will continue to flourish, and become regarded by the general public as more respectable than ever in history;

8.  The gap between what banks pay for deposits (very, very little) and what banks will charge for the few loans they make (loaded with costs, fees, points and hidden charges) will continue to widen;

9. The new Financial Reforms will be of no consequence in regulating against massive financial institutional failures, but will create more government jobs and some more work for some of the larger, better-established multipartner law firms;

10. Taxes, fines tolls, tarrifs, surcharges, fees and "mandatory contributions" will increase steadily and lethally during the next two years to cover the costs of minimalist public services and to narrow the federal and state budget deficits;

11. Not-For-Profits will have a very difficult time getting donations -- many will go out of business;

12. Commercial real estate values will continue to decline in a downward "sawtooth" wave;

13.  There will be increasing friction between federal and state governments on issues of funds allocation, jurisdiction, constitutionality, regulatory issues, law enforcement and conflicts between laws -- some of these conflicts will result in massive civil unrest, and a generalized sentiment or peception of seeing the federal government as having interests increasingly detrimental to those of the individual states. Some serious showdowns and confrontations will occur;

14. The demographics in the US will shift in favor of peoples of color with limited professional technical skills and education, while educated professional caucausians and established and successful people of color will seek to become expatriates;

15. US involvement in military and nation-building projects throughout the world will continue, with a handful of "contractors" profiting tremendously and with their profits remaining unrepatriated and uninvested in the US markets;

16. All forms of offshore or international investment, trusts and entities will be increasingly scrutinized and regulated against as being "unpatriotic."

17. I believe that a US economic rebound (and never a restoration to its former glory or leadership role) is possible through a very slow process (fueled by American entrepreneurship and foreign investment in the US) which may commence in the second half of 2013 and take in excess of seven years.

18. To add an additional nugget to the apex of a growing governmental cow pie, military efforts, expenditure and loss of life in Afghanistan will increase, as will the likelihood of more aggressive confrontation with Iran. The US presence in the "newly-rebuilt" Iraq will actually increase, but the increase will be in the form of lucrative (to a select few) mercenary and rebuilding engagements.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

Douglas Castle
Join my TNNWC Group, LLC collaborative business community (GICBC) at no cost by clicking on http://bit.ly/JoinTNNWC.

NOTE: This Article was originally published in The Global Futurist blog at http://TheGlobalFuturist.blogspot.com



KEY WORDS, TAGS AND TERMS: Bernanke, causes of economic recession, federal reserve system, recession and depression, the capital markets, Douglas Castle, TNNWC, The Omnigadget, The National Networker.
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Global Recession and The United States.

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The Global Recession and the United States.

Dear Friends:

THE NATIONAL NETWORKER (TNNW) is conducting a survey about the economic recession and recovery in the United States. The survey is comprised of a series of very basic questions asking respondents' opinions about the cause of the recession, the likelihood that the US is actually in a recovery, and related issues. Most of the respondents will be subscribers to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER Newsletter and The BLUE TUESDAY Report. For the most part, these respondents represent a very different group (demographically, geographically, culturally, educationally, and in numerous other psychographic aspects) than the readers of THE INTERNATIONALIST PAGE and THE GLOBAL FUTURIST.

I would be deeply indebted to you (although I probably would be advised by legal counsel not to put this in writing) if you would take the time to complete the survey (it is very brief), and to give me your candid thoughts regarding the supplemental questions (8 through 15) at the end of this article.

Our world is interconnected, and politically-defined sovereign nations are increasingly interdependent. Combining these indisputable facts with the speed and ease of communications from any one point on the globe to any other, every country has an effect on every other. The United States, long regarded as the most powerful and influential country in the world has experienced an incredibly rough ride for these past two years, and perhaps (although not publicly disclosed) for some time before.

Your greatest contribution would be to add an Internationalist and non-US perspective to the responses generated by this survey. The results of this survey (TNNW Survey # 5) will be published on a number of social media platforms as well as on these blogs within a day or two after the poll is closed on January 20th, 2010. The survey and supplemental questions follow below. As always, you are invited to join THE NATIONAL NETWORKER as Member at no charge, and to receive their free Newsletters, Updates and other valuable information and intelligence. Click on http://twitlik.com/IN for your free membership -- then (if you are not exhausted, and provided that dinner isn't on the table), click on http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com/ in order to get either the RSS feed or the once-daily Email. I highly recommend both.

TNNW SURVEY # 5: The Economic Recession/ Recovery in the United States

During the course of these past two months, a combination of governmental spokespersons, economic pundits and conservative/ mainstream newscasters have been speaking in optimistic terms about the beginning of a US economic recovery from the nation’s deepest recession since the Great Depression of the 1030's. THE NATIONAL NETWORKER (receive your free membership at http://twitlik.com/IN) wants to know your views about the recession and the "signs" of recovery.

Please take this quick multiple choice survey to give us your professional and personal input as to what you truly believe.

Expatriates and non-US citizens are welcome to join us in this important poll. We thank you all for your valuable participation and comments.





QUESTION PREVIEW:
1.     Do you believe that the worst is over, and that the US economy is on the road to recovery?

2.     What do you think the true (actual) US unemployment rate is?

3.     Do you believe that banks are becoming more aggressive in terms of extending credit to consumers and to businesses?

4.     Is your business or practice experiencing an increase in customer or client business at present?

5.     Do you believe that The Federal Reserve System, The Treasury Department and the White House are being truthful with respect to the economic situation of the United States?

6.     Do you believe that The Federal Reserve System, The Treasury Department and the White House are being responsible and proactive in their handling of the recession issue?

7.     What do you believe that the greatest single cause of the recession was?






This Survey will close on January 20th, 2010, so please have your answers back to us as soon as possible! Thank you, once again. -TNNW


TNNW Survey #5 is being conducted with the co-sponsorship of THE GLOBAL FUTURIST and THE INTERNATIONALIST PAGE.

For those of you who are trend observers, dedicated Futurists or Internationalists, here are several other you questions you may wish to ponder, or to comment upon. Your feedback is most welcome indeed. In fact, at the end of this article there is a COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE button. Please feel free to use it to write anything that you wish in response to the questions which follow. You may comment using your name, or anonymously if you would prefer. Your answers are very much appreciated and will provide very valuable into a study which I am conducting in conjunction with several colleagues in the fields of economics, psychology and sociology. Here are the additional questions for your consideration:

Supplemental Questions To Ponder


8.     Do you believe that the United States led or initiated the global recession? If so, in what way?

9.     Do you believe that the rest of the industrialized nations are emerging, or have now emerged (for the most part) from the global recession?


10.   Do you believe that the United States is lagging behind these other counties in its recovery (if in fact you believe that there is a recovery underway), from the global recession?


11.   What nation, or top three nations do you believe will be the world's most economically viable by 2015?


12.   What do you believe will be the world's strongest hard currency by 2015?


13.   Do you believe that the global recession has advanced/ hampered the cause of Internationalism and a unified global economic and governmental structure?


14.   What are the top three assets (all-inclusive, internationally or domestically) in which you would invest your wealth (assuming that you had funds available to invest) today TO MINIMIZE ANY LOSS by 1015? Note: Your primary directive is the preservation of wealth.


15.   What are the top three assets (all-inclusive, internationally or domestically) in which you would invest your wealth (assuming that you had funds available to invest) today TO MAXIMIZE YOUR GAIN/ CAPITAL APPRECIATION by 1015? Note: Your primary directive is maximum investment growth.


Once again, thank you all so much for reading me, and for your collaboration with me in making this study as informative as possible. I am most grateful.


Faithfully,


Douglas Castle  
 
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