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Jim Cramer's "The sky is falling", meltdown tirade against the Fed & Dow. "WE HAVE ARMAGEDDON! The Fed has "NO IDEA" they should "open the window" and more...cut rates "TODAY"! Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. announced last week that two of its hedge funds were essentially worthless, the price of its stock took a beating and the stock market tanked.
Or, is the sky really falling this time? Who will take the blame? The mainstream media, professional economists failed to warn the public. They decleared the fact that housing prices were rising as good news. Even now, many are trying to say that the meltdown is almost over.
Was Cramer's rant unjustified, or a serious rap on the bad mortgage situation and how the Fed needs to take action to save the economy from crashing?
"Meltdown" may be a little strong at this stage in terms of the housing market alone. But if you look at the credit markets further upstream, there is a meltdown. Home financing companies are dropping like flies. And it's not every day that a company like Bear Sterns is up against the wall.
One result of the housing bubble is that real estate prices and their corresponding property taxes have skyrocketed. The high prices are making home ownership impossible for lower income buyers except with risky sub-prime mortgages. The increasing taxes are making it hard for some longtime homeowners to keep their houses. Meanwhile the speculators have flipped their property and moved on.
The Fed promotes the expansion of credit, leading to a boom and widespread optimism among consumers and investors. The careless borrowing and risky investing brought about by the boom then leads to a bust, generating frenzied calls for the Fed to salvage the situation by promoting a further expansion of credit. The Fed then heeds these calls and the next round of inflation begins. Trying to inflate its way out of the current mess will simply delay the day of reckoning and make it worse, because never before in our history has there been so much debt in the system.
Guide to some terms in the clip:
Discount Window: When a bank in the United States is in need of money, it can turn to the Federal Reserve for a loan, usually on a short-term basis, to meet a temporary contraction of liquidity (the ability to raise cash easily) caused by market disruptions.
Teaser Rates: These are the very low interest rates offered in the early years of an adjustable rate mortgage loan, to entice home buyers into taking out a big loan. After a few years, the interest rate on the loan is adjusted higher, often resulting in a big jump in the monthly payment.
Bill Poole: William Poole is President of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. In a speech last Friday in St. Louis, he argued that Wall Street was right to punish the share prices of companies that made bad decisions by offering loans to borrowers with dodgy credit histories.
Jim Cramer lunatic, or legend?
Note on video: This reproduction is protected under fair use law for the purpose of criticism,comment,and/or reporting. Such use is non-commercial in nature, and all rights revert back to the original author. less
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Aug 10, 07
By: ConspiracyCentral
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