The C.O.P. has a full report you should read when you get a chance, but here’s a summary. While listening to this think about what a collapse will mean to tax revenues in your state. They admit that last year’s “stress test” on our financial system didn’t include commercial real estate and that’s not the worse news in little gem:
And this is an optimistic picture.
From P.R. Newswire:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) today released their Producer Price Index (PPI) report for March 2010 and the latest numbers are shocking. Food prices for the month rose by 2.4%, its sixth consecutive monthly increase and the largest jump in over 26 years. NIA believes that a major breakout in food inflation could be imminent, similar to what is currently being experienced in India.
Some of the startling food price increases on a year-over-year basis include, fresh and dry vegetables up 56.1%, fresh fruits and melons up 28.8%, eggs for fresh use up 33.6%, pork up 19.1%, beef and veal up 10.7% and dairy products up 9.7%. On October 30th, 2009, NIA predicted that inflation would appear next in food and agriculture, but we never anticipated that it would spiral so far out of control this quickly.
The PPI foreshadows price increases that will later occur in the retail sector. With U-6 unemployment rising last month to 16.9%, many retailers are currently reluctant to pass along rising prices to consumers, but they will soon be forced to do so if they want to avoid reporting huge losses to shareholders.
Food stamp usage in the U.S. has now increased for 14 consecutive months. There are now 39.4 million Americans on food stamps, up 22.4% from one year ago. The U.S. government is now paying out more to Americans in benefits than it collects in taxes. As food inflation continues to surge, our country will soon have no choice but to cut back on food stamps and other entitlement programs.
This report was released by The National Inflation Association who have more good information. It is a good idea to start laying in long lasting foods now since the food will simply get more expensive in the coming months. I’d also start learning to garden and preserve food.
h/t Market Skeptics
You should think about this:
This story starts off bad and gets worse. Anyone care to tell me how legalizing drugs would have made this story better?
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — A Port St. Lucie man was arrested on child abuse charges after he made his 11-year-old son smoke “God’s herb” and then “made him stand with his arms extended out to the side in the same fashion as Jesus on the cross,” according to a police report released Tuesday.
Richard Nazareth, 38, turned himself in to police Thursday, more than a month after the alleged incident occurred.
Port St. Lucie police said Nazareth forced his son to smoke marijuana while he and his 9-year-old sister were staying at Nazareth’s house for a weekend in March.
According to the police report, Nazareth served both children a piece of bread and a small cup of wine, telling them it was the body and blood of Christ. After dinner, Nazareth brought a bag of marijuana, a pipe and a lighter to the table and began to smoke the marijuana in front of them, telling them it was “God’s herb.”
When the children declined Nazareth’s offer to smoke with him, Nazareth told his son to “cup his hands around his mouth and exhale all of his breath” while Nazareth blew smoke into the boy’s mouth, the report stated.
Wow. That’s some stonery parenting. But it gets worse. Much worse:
The next day, Nazareth took the children to a woman’s house for church, where Nazareth made his son smoke marijuana again and then made him imitate Jesus on the cross, the report stated.
After dinner, Nazareth placed one of his tears and the woman’s tears into a bottle of wine, then spit in it and added a drop of beer. Nazareth then used the mixture to bless the house and made both children drink from it “before drinking some himself and sharing some” with the woman, the report stated.
So if drugs were legal this probably wouldn’t have been illegal and … what? Richard Nazareth would have raised a serial killer? Or eventually would he have ended up killing the boy in some more extreme ceremony he and his gutterslut dreamed up while getting high?
h/t reader Charles
Wow Illinois really runs a great state with a robust economy. If only we could get someone who helped run that state to become President and institute the same kind of policies that make it such a great place for wealth generation:
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over four banks in Chicago: New Century Bank (CBAO), with $485.6 million in assets; Citizens Bank (CZMO)&Trust Company, with $77.3 million in assets; Broadway Bank, with $1.2 billion in assets; and Lincoln Park Savings Bank, with $199.9 million in assets.
The FDIC also took over Amcore Bank of Rockford, which had $3.8 billion in assets; Peotone Bank and Trust Company in Peotone, with $130.2 million in assets; and Wheatland Bank of Naperville, with $437.2 million in assets.
MB Financial Bank agreed to acquire the deposits of both Broadway Bank and New Century Bank. Republic Bank of Chicago agreed to assume Citizens’ deposits, while Chicago-based Harris National Association agreed to acquire Amcore Bank’s deposits.
Northbrook Bank and Trust Company of NorthBrook agreed to acquire the deposits of Lincoln Park Savings Bank. First Midwest Bank of Itasca agreed to assume Peotone Bank and Trust’s deposits. Wheaton Bank & Trust will acquire the deposits of Wheatland Bank.
The failure of Broadway Bank is expected to cost the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund $394.3 million. For the other banks, the estimated costs are: Amcore Bank, $220.3 million; New Century Bank, $125.3 million; Citizens Bank&Trust Company, $20.9 million; Lincoln Park Savings Bank, $48.4 million; Peotone Bank and Trust Company, $31.7 million; and Wheatland Bank, $133 million.
Broadway Bank was owned by the family of Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat who is running for President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat. The bank was heavy into real estate loans and lost $75 million last year.
But wait, here’s the good news. We did have some of those same policies which created a market for sub-prime mortgage insurance and a commercial real estate bubble that is going to wipe billions of dollars out of existence. The results of that kind of Fabian economics are visible for the world to see, but the left wants to pretend it isn’t there:
There were 140 bank failures in the U.S. last year, the highest annual tally since 1992 at the height of the savings and loan crisis. They cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008 and only three succumbed in 2007.
The number of bank failures likely will peak this year and will be slightly higher than in 2009, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said recently.
As losses have mounted on loans made for commercial property and development, the growing bank failures have sapped billions of dollars out of the deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year, hitting a $20.9 billion deficit as of Dec. 31.
The number of banks on the FDIC’s confidential “problem” list jumped to 702 in the fourth quarter from 552 three months earlier, even as the industry squeezed out a small profit. Still, nearly one in every three banks reported a net loss for the latest quarter.
The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years.
The FDIC is claiming that depositor insurance for individuals is not at risk, which is clearly asinine. I’d start moving money where you can get it and investing in tangibles.