By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com   
It is said at the end of an empire, the Treasury is always looted.  In the case of America, it is the value of the dollar and the credit rating of the United States that is being robbed from the American people.  
NYU Professor of Economics, Nouriel Roubini, said in August of last year, “Recent economic, financial and geopolitical events suggest that the decline of the American Empire has started. After the collapse of the Soviet Union there was a brief period where the world switched from a …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
The information below is provided complements of shadowstats.com.  I do not get paid in any way for posting this information.  Shadowstats.com is a paid subscription site and well worth the money.   Here is the link for the full report.  (shadowstats.com)
Shadow Government Statististics  
-Recession Is Not Over
  
- Quarterly GDP Growth Is Not Sustainable, with 92% of Growth in Nonrecurring Factors
  
- Annual GDP Down 2.3% (5.7% SGS)
 
- 4th-Quarter GDP Should Resume Quarter-to-Quarter Decline 
 
 
- Durables Goods Orders at 1997 Level
- Help-Wanted Adverting at New 58-Year Low

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
Peter Schiff is a legitimate candidate for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut for the 2010 election.  He runs a big time fund called Euro Pacific Capital.  He has made some big calls that have proven to be correct.  For one, he predicted the current financial meltdown at least 2 years before it happened.  He has written three books on finance and investing.  All are best sellers.  According to him, this downturn is not over by a long shot.  Schiff was out recently with a You Tube video warning about the collapse of the dollar.  That’s …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
There is an old saying in the markets, “nothing goes straight up or straight down.”  If the economy has a lot more to fall, as I think it does, then it will not fall straight down.  I think we are on a proverbial plateau in this downturn.   Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, “The financial sector story is in a much stronger position than it was but it’s a mixed picture,”  and “The price of credit has come down dramatically.”  The economic picture has improved because of massive amounts of …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
A good friend of mine sent me and article from Politico with the headline “Bernanke’s trillion-dollar decision.”   I read the article.  It talks about how Fed Chief Ben Bernanke has to decide whether or not he will continue to support the banking system with 1 trillion dollars in funding that is “propping the system up.”   The writer laments the fact that decision will be Bernanke’s alone and Obama  ”will have almost nothing to do with it.”
I wrote my buddy back and told him, “ So what do you think they are going …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
This week the Federal Reserve hit thousands of banks with wide ranging pay controls.  The so called ”Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg said that salaries paid to the top earning executives at some of the biggest bailedout companies would be slashed by 50% and capped at 500 grand a year.  The companies taking the cuts are American International Group Inc, Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, General Motors Co, Chrysler, GMAC and Chrysler Financial.  The reason why Feinberg singled out these companies is because, according to him, they received “exceptional federal aid.“  What about …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
Pakistan is in a real struggle for control of the country with the Taliban.  This is an actual war, not the threat of war as we see with Israel and Iran.  I wrote about Pakistan as being one of 2 big problem areas in the world today in “The 2 Biggest Geopolitical Wild Cards in the World” post.  Take a good look at the map on this post and see how close the Taliban stronghold in the northern part of the country is to the capitol which is Islamabad.  …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
The story below is what I call the canary in the banking coal mine.  Wells Fargo was downgraded today by top banking analyst Dick Bove.  He didn’t downgrade them because they were making too much money.  What the article doesn’t say is  before Wells Fargo bought Wachovia,  Wachovia bought Golden West Financial in 2006.  Golden West was a leader in a little something called a Pay Option ARM.  Golden West had about 120 billion in these loans when Wachovia bought them.   Payment Option Arms are also called “pick …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
I have been warning about a currency crisis for weeks.  It appears I am not the only one worried about a big drop in value of the dollar.  David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital is also betting on a”currency death spiral.”  Einhorn is no small player.  He runs a 5 billion dollar fund and has a habit of making big calls.  In July, Einhorn sold 4.2 million shares of a gold ETF to buy physical bullion.  Buying physical gold couldn’t be more bearish and negative.  It is also play against the dollar.  Now, …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
This week I wrote a post about the announcemment of the recession being over.  Of course my post (Is the Ression over?  Don’t bet on it!)  clearly gave reasons why it is NOT over by a country mile. This story from Reuters on Friday is confirmation we have a long way to go. 
By Leah Schnurr
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Friday after disappointing results from General Electric Co (GE.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) demonstrated the road to economic recovery will be bumpy.
GE, which sells …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
From John Williams at Shadowstats
- September Annual Inflation -1.3% (CPI-U), 6.1% (SGS)
- CPI-U Inflation Spike Due by Year-End
- No Recovery: September Real Retail Sales Continued
Bottom-Bouncing at Low-Level Plateau
- 10 Years of Retail Sales Growth Gone
shadowstats.com is a paid site that is worth the money for access to real numbers!    shadowstats.com   I do not get paid for plugging this site.

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
The headline on Reuters this week read, “U.S. recession over, unemployment seen at 10 percent.”  This great news is according to a new survey by the National Association for Business Economics.   Forty-four professional forecasters took part in the assay.  After four straight quarters of declines, 80 percent of them believe the economy was growing again .  I would like to know who the recession is over for because it is not over for main street America.  I would also like to know how the 44 professional forecasters were chosen.  Did …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
Everybody is wondering where all of the bailouts and spending are going to take us?  Just a few of the big companies the government has bailed out to keep them from going bankrupt are: General Motors, Chrysler, AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, (all the big banks got some kind of bailout) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  According to Pro Publica, 721 companies have received some sort of financial help from the taxpayer.  If the economy does not improve, many of these companies will require more …

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
For those of you who think the economy is doing well, gold is saying something altogether different.  Today AU hit a brand new high,  the record gold price is a major warning sign of, at the very least, big inflation coming. 
 …”NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Gold finished at a new record closing level on Tuesday, after earlier hitting a record intra-day high of $1,045 an ounce, as the dollar slumped on a report suggesting the end of dollar-based oil trading”…(For more on the story click here)

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  
Could a meeting between the President and a Four Star General in Copenhagen signal a turning point in the war against the Taliban?  It has been reported that the NATO Commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has angered the White House with a series of candid comments about the war that has been going on for 8 years.
When asked if General McChrystal supported proposals to switch to a strategy which used more drone missile strikes and special forces against the enemy, he said it would lead to “Chaos-istan.” …