Art Nadel: Art Nadel the new Bernard Madoff? 76 Year Old Financial Swindler. Disbarred Early in his Career for taking client money to pay off Loan Sharks.
Art Nadel, if you haven’t heard, is another financial swindler in the similar vein of Bernard Madoff. Of course his $350 million swindle doesn’t hold a light to Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme but this does tell us one thing, where there is one roach there will be many more. And that is why we are seeing the pillars of the financial decadence decade come crashing down with bankruptcies flaring up and banks dropping like welterweight fighters.
Bankrupt Consumer: Chapter 7 Bankruptcies up. Credit Card and Consumer Credit Crisis: Americans were Using Consumer Credit as a Lifeline and it is now drying Up Pushing Bankruptcies Upward. $2.5 Trillion in Loans at Risk.
Credit cards have been around for many years with Bank of America creating the BankAmericard in 1958, which eventually evolved into the modern day Visa system. MasterCard has been around since 1966 and received significant backing from Citibank. These names are familiar with the current credit crisis. Credit cards have been one component of the approximately $50 trillion in debt we have as Americans. Now credit by itself isn’t necessarily an evil. Initially, credit was given to those who had the 3 C’s; capacity, character, and collateral.
Saving Nation: You Know you Have a Fiscal Problem When Saving Money Actually Becomes a Detriment to the Health of our Economy.
In George Orwell’s dystopian 1984, doublethink was the ability for someone to hold two mutually contradictory beliefs, and accepting them both. We have now entered into the world when Americans actually saving money is bad for the health of our consumption economy. War is peace. Saving is spending. Our Ministry of Truth is the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury telling us that going into debt and devaluing our U.S. dollar is actually good for the health of our country. The only minor caveat is that it is good for a very small section of our country in particular the crew on Wall Street Oceania.
Fiscal Situation of 50 States: Combined Budget Gaps Estimated at $350 Billon for 2010 and 2011.
It is simply stunning that 44 states are facing shortfalls either for this fiscal year, or will come up short in 2010 or 2011. This puts virtually the entire country in a difficult financial situation. It is hard to understand how the media feels that the federal government is somehow better able to get money from people than states. The federal government’s largest income source is the federal income tax; yet this is income from employees in those same states were fiscal problems are running deep. The government is also going to have a challenging time taxing someone with no job right?