The government is banking on the American consumer to rescue the economy. But debt-ridden households have had enough, says Andrew Gordon. He says the government’s massive bailout are benefiting very few in the short-term. But the long-term consequences will be felt by all.

This from Investor’s Daily Edge:

The government’s latest bailout moves have me scratching my head. It’s throwing $200 billion worth of guarantees at recent and current loans tied to consumer and small-business spending.

Hank and Ben want the consumer to bail out the economy. And they want to do it by putting consumers deeper into debt.

They don’t get it.

They don’t get that consumers are tapped out.

What do they think when they see numbers that show that American households are in deeper debt than ever before? Or when they see that consumer spending in October fell the most in

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Almost from the moment that trading began in the Far East on Monday morning, there was someone there to sell the gold and silver market down. This pressure really began to accelerate to the down side at one of the usual times of day…2:00 a.m. New York time…which is early Monday evening in Sydney, late afternoon in Hong Kong…and first thing in the morning (7:00 a.m.) in London.

Then, the moment the Comex opened for business, the bullion bank(s) pulled their bids and both metals sank like stones…particularly silver. For style points in silver, I give da boyz a 9.5/10. Any bets that it was mostly JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM)? After that pounding, the metals did nothing for the rest of the day. The shares got creamed.

Ted Butler had this to say about it yesterday…”While I certainly didn’t expect it, explaining Monday’s sell-off is pretty easy. It was a dealer-engineered drop

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Almost from the moment that trading began in the Far East on Monday morning, there was someone there to sell the gold and silver market down. This pressure really began to accelerate to the down side at one of the usual times of day…2:00 a.m. New York time…which is early Monday evening in Sydney, late afternoon in Hong Kong…and first thing in the morning (7:00 a.m.) in London.

Then, the moment the Comex opened for business, the bullion bank(s) pulled their bids and both metals sank like stones…particularly silver. For style points in silver, I give da boyz a 9.5/10. Any bets that it was mostly JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM)? After that pounding, the metals did nothing for the rest of the day. The shares got creamed.

Ted Butler had this to say about it yesterday…”While I certainly didn’t expect it, explaining Monday’s sell-off is pretty easy. It was a dealer-engineered drop

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h1 style="text-align: center;"bBank Nationalization/b/h1h2 style="text-align: center;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"Bank Nationalization Day/span/b/h2a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tvshDVnXSLc/SS_l74vGpJI/AAAAAAAAAf4/J6EgOxMC024/s1600-h/RBS-DundasHouse.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tvshDVnXSLc/SS_l74vGpJI/AAAAAAAAAf4/J6EgOxMC024/s320/RBS-DundasHouse.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273686505679135890" border="0" //a Old HQ pictured. Following failure of shareholders to buy more than 0.24% (only £36m for 56m shares) of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group's £20bn share issue, RBS (1) (including Citizens Bank, USA, and NatWest Bank, England) today became the third to be formally nationalised (nearly 58%). The small take-up of the issue by existing shareholders had been expected as the offer price of 65.5p was 10p higher than the price at which the shares were trading, so those who did buy on paper lost £5m doing so. The share issue by RBS was part of the government's plan to recapitalise banks. The government will pay £15bn for the majority stake in the bank plus £5bn of ...

Will current Bank of Israel head Stanley Fischer be leaving Israel for the New York Fed? According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Fischer is considered to be a dark horse to fill the vacancy left by Timothy Geithner, who is joining Pres. elect Barack Obama as Treasury Secretary.

According to the Journal, “Outsiders who could be considered include Peter Fisher, a former Treasury official who is now a senior executive at BlackRock Inc.; Stanley Fischer, an economist who runs Israel’s central bank; and Roger Ferguson, a former deputy Fed chairman who is now chief executive of TIAA-CREF, an investment firm that specializes in serving academic institutions.”

The question is whether if this is so, does this mean the Israeli economy is about to go into the gutter. Fischer has a history of bailing out just in the nick of

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The real truth behind Citigroup bailout

An excerpt. Link to full article at bottom of post.

What neither Paulson nor anyone in Washington is willing to reveal is the real truth behind the Citigroup bailout. By his and the Republican Bush Administration’s adamant earlier refusal to take an initial resolute action to immediately nationalize the nine or so largest troubled banks, he has created the present debacle. By refusing on ideological grounds to instead reorganize the banks’ assets into some form of ‘good bank’ and ‘bad bank,’ similar to what the Government of Sweden did with what it called Securum, during its banking crisis in the early 1990’s, Paulson and company have created a global financial structure on the brink.

A Securum or similar temporary nationalization would have allowed the healthy banks to continue lending to the real economy so the economy could continue operating, while the State merely sat on the undervalued

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Faber says buy physical gold OUTSIDE the United States

Faber: Global Economy Imploding, Buy Gold

Tuesday, November 25, 2008 2:26 PM

By: Gene Koprowski

The global economy is “imploding” and central banks have “become asylums for economies that have gone insane,” says noted contrarian investor and economist Marc Faber.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Faber said that investors need to act as their “own central banker” and invest in physical gold assets.

“Worldwide, governments are injecting liquidity and then everything goes up, and some things go up more than others,” said Faber.

“You can trade this rally in ETFs, or physical commodities, or derivatives, but, at some point, from January to March, the global economy is imploding. There is not going to be a recovery despite the government intervention.”

Faber, who heads his own firm, Marc Faber Ltd., said that international liquidity has to improve dramatically for the economies of the world to settle down.

Faber said he

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Gloomy economic picture fuels risk aversion… Financials, energy, retailers among top drags… Dow off 4.3 pct, S&P 500 off 5 pct, Nasdaq off 5.3 pct

U.S. stocks tumbled on Monday as signs of further deterioration in the economy around the world punctured last week’s market enthusiasm, with financial services companies and retailers among Wall Street’s biggest drags.

Major industrial companies also contributed to losses on signs global demand is faltering, leading investors to pare back risk in favor of safe-haven government debt.

With the holiday shopping season under way, investors feared that retailers may turn in their bleakest sales in many years. The S&P retail index declined 4.4 percent.

Department store Macy’s Inc tumbled 9.6 percent.

Consumers made repeat trips to stores and spent more on bargains this weekend, but analysts said the rush is unlikely to translate into a much-needed boost in profit.

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Pack a lunch and blow the froth off a cool one…as I’ve got three days of gold and silver market activities to talk about…and lots of fascinating reading as well.

Wednesday, November 26th

This was the last day for all parties to get their gold and silver contracts switched to the 2009 year…or they would have to stand for delivery on Friday. With the U.S. in holiday mode almost from the beginning of trading, the tiny rally at the Comex open was stepped on and never recovered. But it hardly mattered…as volume was virtually non-existent. Silver was the same. Call the day a big zero. However, the shares reacted otherwise. Even though gold was down ten bucks at the close of the equity markets, the HUI still managed a surprising 6% increase…the second day in a row that gold has been flat or down…and the HUI up. Hmmm!

Open interest on Tuesday showed

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div style="text-align: justify;"Citigroup is out cautious on span style="font-weight: bold;"General Electric (NYSE:GE)/span saying GE Capital webcast could be forum to lower 2009 outlook. Firm maintains Hold rating and $16 tgt on the stock.br /br /On 11/25 GE announced it will be holding a webcast on 12/2 to review GE Capital. The goal of the webcast is to review strategy, funding, liquidity, risk management and details behind the recently announced $2 billion cost reduction program at GE Capital.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Opportunity for GE to Lower 2009 EPS Expectations? —/span Firm believes the webcast could also serve as a venue to lower 2009 EPS expectations. Normally the coming year guidance is communicated by CEO Jeff Immelt at the late December meeting which is scheduled for 12/16 this year.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Historical Precedent For Guide Down/span — In prior years, when street estimates were too high, GE has held late Nov/Early ...