By John Packard Underlying economic and banking system fundamentals rapidly are getting worse, not suddenly better as touted in the media tied into Wallstreet. Another tall tale is of the Fed’s valiant fight against recession, while containing inflation. Now that the economy has been turned, the story goes, the Fed can slowdown or eliminate its easing so as to concentrate on its inflation fight. What nonsense! The Fed’s primary concern remains preventing a systemic financial collapse; everything else is secondary. The Fed has very limited ability at present either to […]

By John Packard NewsWeek just came out with an article describing a man who sold his business and put it into an investment account with a prestigious investment firm in New York. He had what was reasonably a large sum of money. $10 million to be exact. The article then described how he received hardly any attention. The point of the article was to suggest that you are really not financially rich until you have $25 million. $25 million?! You’ve got to be kidding me! Leave it to the media […]

By John Packard After years of living large, U.S. households are finally learning what financial experts thought they never would: to live within their means. Economists have long warned that the U.S. consumer was on an unsustainable spending frenzy and that savings rates were dangerously low. Now, families are being forced into financial responsibility by the housing downturn and a weakening economy. My question is, why has it taken so long. The media, credit companies, and other culprits have perpetuated this myth that there should be no limit to our […]

By John Packard Although I think the economic stimulus package is a joke, it is money and we’ll take it. Government is expecting all of us good citizens to go out and ‘spend’ the money. The theory is that such ‘spending’ will jumpstart the economy back into growth mode. Forget the fact that the U.S. Federal government is the biggest perpetrator of fiscal irresponsibility in history. (I will stop here.) My suggestion is that we send uncle sam a message: That we are not going to spend the money, but […]