By Greg Hunter
Many people I talk to and hear from are having a really hard time grasping how severe the real estate crisis is in America.  Let me sum up how bad the problem  is in one simple  sentence.  The real estate market (both residential and commercial) is the worst EVER!   According to Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller, the real estate boom a few years ago was the biggest in history!  The bust we find ourselves in now will, also, be the biggest in history. 

By Greg Hunter   
There has been some encouraging news about the real estate market recently.  In San Francisco, real estate prices shot back up 16% according to the Case-Shiller Index.  On the other coast, friends of mine in the New York City real estate business say price declines seem to be leveling off.  There has been plenty of talk that “now is the time to buy a house.”  After all, the government will give up to an $8,000 tax credit if you purchase a home.  But what is the real story …

By Greg Hunter
Congressman Ron Paul put out a startling warning  video just over a week ago.  This tells me things must be getting really messy right now. 

By Greg  Hunter (updated)
Almost everything but the U.S. dollar took a hit yesterday.  Oil sold off nearly 4 bucks a barrel, the Dow was off nearly 270 points, bonds tumbled and gold plunged nearly $50 per ounce.  The dollar was bought because the euro sold off due to debt trouble in Southern Europe. There are fears of a debt default in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece.  The “safe haven” of the U.S. dollar is the beneficiary of those consternations.

By Greg Hunter
This was a huge week folks.  The two big stories I wrote about were the AIG bailout and cover-up and the U.S. deficit.  I have a couple of really good stories to pass along that will give you some more perspective on both. 
First, there is a lot more to the AIG story that will come out in the future.  The Huffington Post ran a story called “Is Bernanke Hiding a Smoking Gun?”  It’s about how the Fed Chief was behind the bailout of AIG even though his staff recommended not to rescue the …

By Greg Hunter
The Obama Administration is planning to seek a spending freeze for 3 years on domestic discretionary non-security spending.  Officials say the freeze could save $250 billion over the next 10 years.  That may seem like a lot of money until you compare it to the most recent national debt-limit raise of $290 billion last month.  It sure looks to me like we have already spent the future savings and then some.  

By Greg Hunter
The Fed is currently fighting tooth and nail in a federal appeals court to keep its bailout of big banks secret.   In August of last year, the Fed lost a lawsuit in federal court that would force the 97 year old Central Bank to say who it bailed out during the financial crisis in 2008.  The Fed gave a half trillion dollar bailout to foreign banks alone during the financial meltdown. 

By Greg Hunter   
Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest unemployment numbers.  The BLS said, “Nonfarm payroll employment edged down (-85,000) in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.0 percent.”  Shadow Government Statistics founder, John Williams, looked at the same data the government did and said, “…payrolls likely declined by about 500,000.” 

By Greg Hunter
Monday, I did a post called “Bank Ratings Keep Slipping Away.” My colleague across the pond, Max Keiser, sent me an email with his thoughts on the post.  Max is a former Wall Street broker turned financial journalist.  He does a couple of different financial TV and radio shows in Europe. 

By Greg Hunter
As I watch the News out of Washington today, I see the heads of our nation’s biggest banks being grilled in Congress on the causes of the economic problems we are facing.  None of those guys can say they are there because their bank is flush with cash and great investments.  The banks and the economy are in the shape they are in because of greedy incompetent bankers who paid lobbyists to erase all regulation to allow them to make reckless highly leveraged investments into toxic assets.  Now taxpayers …