Joke Of The Day

A short guy is sitting at a bar just staring at his drink for half an hour when this big trouble-making central banker steps next to him, grabs his drink, gulps it down in one swig and then turns to the guy with a menacing stare as if to say, ‘What’cha gonna do about it?"

The poor little guy starts crying.

"Come on man, I was just giving you a hard time," the banker says. "I didn’t think you’d CRY. I can’t stand to see a man crying."

"This is the worst day of my life," says the little guy between sobs. "I can’t do anything right. I overslept and was late to an important meeting, so my boss fired me. When I went to the parking lot, I found my car was stolen and I don’t have any insurance. I left my wallet in the cab I took home."

He continues, crying even harder. "Then my dog bit me. So, I came to this bar trying to work up the courage to put an end to my life. And then you show up and drink the damn poison."

How hedge fund manager John Paulson bet against the real estate bubble and made $15 billion in a single year.

In a span of just three years, hedge-fund manager John Paulson went from practically unknown to practically unparalleled. After a series of smart bets against the housing market made Paulson's hedge fund billions of dollars—including days where it made more than $1 billion—he earned a place alongside George Soros and Warren Buffett as an oracle of investing. In his new book, The Greatest Trade Ever, Gregory Zuckerman, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, examines how the unlikely team of Paulson and assistant Paolo Pellegrini—as well as a few other investors—bucked conventional wisdom and saw through the housing hype. (more)

Financial expert Gerald Celente: American public losing everything to fascist oligarchs

Gerald Celente is one of the world’s best trend forecasters. In the following 4-part radio interview, Celente blasts current political and economic “leadership” as beholden to large corporate and financial interests. As I’ve documented, professionals who work with economics are using unprecedented harsh language in attempt to get Americans’ attention to the loss of trillions of our collective dollars. His comments include (paraphrased): (more)

David Rosenberg on How We Get to $2,750 Gold

Gold prices are currently trading at the record level of $1,100/oz. Looking at the long-term loss of value in the dollar, and the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century, the question is whether this is just the kickoff phase for the precious metal. Many experts expect gold to trade above $1,300 by the first quarter of 2010. They ultimately see the correlation between peak gold and weak dollar resulting in gold above $2K. Gluskin Sheff Chief economist David Rosenberg thinks that as the world keeps losing confidence in paper currencies, and as investors worldwide seek safe havens from a declining greenback, there are reasons to be bullish on gold: (more)

Lining up at Midnight at Wal-Mart to buy Food is part of the new Recovery

There seems to be a growing divide in the current U.S. economy. On the one hand, you have the financial sector swimming in their bailout-induced profits like a modern day Scrooge Mcduck. In their circles, it appears as if the recession is over. On the other hand, you have average Americans seeing access to credit cards shut down, equity in their homes vanishing, and their stock portfolios looking a little too much like 1999. Then you have 35.8 million Americans, roughly 11 percent of our population, on food stamps. To this group the recession is still very much alive.

At a recent Alliance for Family Entertainment of the Association of National Advertisers, Wal-Mart gave a sobering look at the current economy: (more)

Fink: Record Cash Going into Stocks

Laurence Fink, CEO of money management titan BlackRock, says investors are exiting cash for financial markets in record numbers.

But he doesn’t see that trend creating a bubble.

"We are seeing a record amount of cash being put to work,” Fink told The Wall Street Journal.

“The firm on Dec. 1 will have over $3 trillion in assets… I’ve never seen more flows going out of cash into something else.”

Why the record shift? Thank the Fed, he says. (more)

Stock Index Trading

click here to watch video