news.goldseek.com >> 7 May 2008

Tax Rebates Mean Blood in the Shark-Infested Water
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
The government rebates are coming: Quick, hide from the bill collectors! Creditors and debt collectors alike can smell the money a mile away, and they’re mighty hungry. Some debt collectors resemble sharks who want to take a big bite, while others are like mosquitoes who quietly feast. But many more are like leeches attaching to prey until they’re full, and their victims have been sucked dry.

news.goldseek.com >> 8 April 2008

The Economy's Summer Holiday Has Already Begun
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
Memorial Day is still seven weeks away but economically the summer doldrums have already begun in many parts of the country. Over nine hundred thousand pink slips were issued over the last year, and in March alone the BLS Household Survey of Employment reported 438,000 people would begin their summer vacations much earlier than expected.

news.goldseek.com >> 13 March 2008

The Magic Mirror Economy
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
No one can ever be too rich, too thin, or too beautiful. We would all like to look into a mirror that tells us that. But in tough economic times like these when inflation is raging, unemployment is climbing, and the economy is falling apart, our government is forced to look into the mirror and create a magical image by reassuring the American people that everything is just fine with the economy, when it’s really not. So how exactly do they go about doing this?

news.goldseek.com >> 8 February 2008

Liquidity Looked in the Mirror but Insolvency Stared Back
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
We continue to read articles in the financial press and elsewhere by widely-respected mainstream economists who have a tendency to quote mindlessly from Keynes’ masterpiece “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. They couldn’t be further from the truth, however, when they claim that the current credit cycle liquidity problems can be corrected with a little fiscal stimulus and cheap money to jumpstart the ailing economy.

news.goldseek.com >> 22 January 2008

An Economic Heart Attack Brought on by Sugar and Fat
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
The other day I was frankly stunned to see President Bush in a panic. He was flanked by the Secretary of the Treasury and the head of the Federal Reserve as they rolled our sick economy onto a gurney to the OR. Congress witnessed this as defibrillator paddles were thrust into the country’s open chest and screams of “clear” were heard as far as Washington, as a jolt of $150 billion dollars in tax cuts was administered.

news.goldseek.com >> 6 December 2007

The Economy’s Last Hurrah Before That Big Sucking Sound
By: Richard Benson, Specialty Finance Group, LLC
As 2007 wounds down, it’s time to reflect on how bogus government statistics along with Wall Street media hype have impacted the psychology and perception in the financial markets. Sheer disappointment is one way to describe what the financial markets will experience as the existing belief in a Goldilocks economy is challenged by sobering facts and a hard landing, yet to come.

news.goldseek.com >> 26 October 2007

When Crumbling Credit Meets Deadly Leverage
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
If our country’s debt problems in the private sector were simply limited to the $1.5 trillion of subprime mortgages that needed to be repaid, restructured or foreclosed, the situation might be manageable. But they’re not, and it isn’t.

news.goldseek.com >> 14 September 2007

The Recession is Here
By: Richard Benson, Specialty Finance Group, LLC
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to see the signs of a recession bursting through in economic data, particularly in the August Employment Report. One general coincident indicator for a slowing economy is in the decline in tax receipts. Because taxes are based on income, if less income is reported, lower tax revenues are received. Tax receipts are falling for the US Treasury and the for state and local tax authorities.

news.goldseek.com >> 27 July 2007

Swim with the Sharks but Risk Being Eaten Alive
By: Richard Benson, Specialty Finance Group, LLC
This article is not about the private companies that use sound lending practices. It’s about the many big financial players, the giant hedge funds, major money center banks, and Watt Street Investment banks. These are the “Big Boy Sharks” who created $2 trillion in subprime mortgages, using hubris and Gordon Gekko-style greed, and have recklessly used leverage and risk with other peoples’ money to book corporate profits.

news.goldseek.com >> 3 July 2007

Independence Day is Here, but Not for Many Americans
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
America may be referred to as the “Home of the Brave” because when the bills arrive it takes a lot of courage to open them up, especially when you must turn around and face your wife and kids with a straight face. When it comes to paying bills these days, America just doesn’t feel like the land of the free any longer. To be truly free you must be debt-free; if you’re not, your creditors own you.

news.goldseek.com >> 24 May 2007

How the Government Creates Jobs
By: Richard Benson, SFGroup
Our elected officials and Wall Street executives all have a vested interest in keeping the perception of a robust economy alive. The employment data announced each month is critical to this perception, but a thorough analysis of the data suggests something quite different that wheat we are told.

news.goldseek.com >> 29 March 2007

Inflation and the Ironic Productivity Tax
By: Richard Benson, www.sfgroup.org
There was a time when I actually looked forward to the government’s reports on productivity because it made me feel that I could share in the collective genius, good luck, and hard work of my fellow man. Then I woke up and realized that those very reports were being used to rob me! Here’s how I came to that conclusion.

news.goldseek.com >> 22 February 2007

Subprime Titanic Hits Iceberg: Wall Street Abandons Ship
By: Richard Benson, www.sfgroup.org
The subprime market is overloaded with bad loans that have effectively smashed holes into the hull of this financial ship. It has been surprisingly easy for people buying a new house to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars by simply telling the bank how much money they make -- without any proof. It's called a "stated income" loan, but many people inside the housing industry call it something else: a “liar loan” or a “NINA” (no asset, no income verification).