Signs of collapse: in the news April & May ‘07

Mike Whitney, “Housing Bubble Meltdown: Is It Too Late to Get Out?”,  April 28, 2007

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article882.html 

“The details of the meltdown are being downplayed in the media to prevent panic-selling among the public. But the Fed knows what’s going on. . . .

“Kenneth Heebner, manager of CGM Realty Fund (Capital Growth Management), provided a realistic forecast of what we can expect in the near future as defaults increase. . . . “I would expect that housing prices in 2007 will decline 20% in a lot of markets. What you are going to see is the greatest price decline in housing since the Great Depression . . . .

“Nearly 70% of subprimes have been securitized [sold as securities to hedge funds and institutional investors]. . . . In Henry C K Liu’s “Why the Subprime Bust will Spread” (Asia Times) the author states that the bursting housing bubble will trigger a major pension crisis. After all, who are the “institutional investors? They are mostly pension funds that manage the money the US working public depends on for retirement. . . .” (Liu)

“. . . Since nearly 50% of “securitized” mortgage debt is owned by foreign investors, the subprime meltdown is bound send tremors through the entire global financial system.”
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“The Housing Mess” by Terry Savage, The Street.com 5-13-07

http://www.thestreet.com/_iwon/newsanalysis/opinion/10356410.html?cf=WSIWON1111051500

Predicts a drop in home prices of 30 to 50 percent.  Other sources warn that a drop in home prices of 40 percent would collapse the economy of the United States.  (See Web of Debt, chapter  31.)  Collapsed mortgages and foreclosures shrink the supply of money-built-on-debt, shrinking the economy, in the sort of syndrome experienced in the Great Depression.

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“Venezuela Exits IMF and World Bank,” AlJazeera.net, May 1, 2007.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A9912111-2F84-46E8-AF39-5FFD33332E29.htm

Details how Venezuela and other countries are distancing themselves from international lenders.

Related article: “Chavez Threatens to Nationalize Banks, Steel Producer,” Associated Press (May 3, 2007)

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070503/venezuela_chavez.html?.v=19

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“Asia Will Start Its Own Currency Pool So It Can Dump IMF,” drawing on Bloomberg News Service article dated May 3, 2007.

http://www.gata.org/node/5042

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Emily Thornton, “Roads to Riches – Why investors are clamoring to take over America’s highways, bridges, and airports – and why the public should be nervous,” Business Week, May 7, 2007.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_19/b4033001.htm?chan=search

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