What can I say? The last 10 years have been brutal. For those of you that resisted the urge to go head over heals in debt, I commend and salute you. For those who resisted the propaganda from Wall Street and the Government to invest in stocks, I doubly salute you. The bubble has burst. The old values of saving for a rainy day and being responsible and prudent in the use of money may finally return. This country stands at the very edge of financial disaster. Those of you with cash savings are being heavily punished for your prudent and responsible actions in that interest rates on savings accounts have never been lower. The printing presses are working overtime to replace the trillions of dollars that are disappearing at the hands of greedy mortgage holders, speculators and Wall Street insiders.

Be aware that this "Financial Awareness" section will pull information from my "Political Awareness" section. The financial well being of this country and it's citizens are closely tied to the political environment. The incredibly heavy debt load carried by average citizens has made them work slaves. Their motivitation, fueled by the promise that inflation and ever rising prices will bail them out, has resulted in a great deal of pain for them. Unfortunately, this same pain is not limited to the irresponsible spenders and carries over into the ranks of the elderly, sick, and low income citizens. From CNN-

I can't help but think that huge egos coupled with total greed played a major part in our current financial debacle. Nobody trusts the honesty of the banks. People and organizationss that can not use the FDIC insurance program for one reason or another have turned to U.S. Treasuries. Bernanke, on the other hand, is doing everything possible to make Treasuries as unattractive as possible in an effort to get monies back into the banks. The prudent and responsible saver is, of course, caught in the middle. As of this writing (12-02-08) Treasury interest rates hover around 0.15%. Average savers that depend on interest income are being forced into FDIC insured CD's and the like. All of this was made known well ahead of 2008 to our wonderful and worthless dead-head politicans. California mortgage lender Paris Welch knew of the coming disaster and warned regulators in 2006. Her warning fell on deaf ears. Paul Farrell started his warning campaign. back in 2000. None of this made any difference to the lobbyist indoctrinated politicans of the time and thus we now have a disaster.

I believe it's worth while to comment on the apparent lack of moral responsibility currently being exercised by the Federal Government. This article most closely reflects my feelings about the bailouts. . I am very thankful to see the current administration (12/08) leaving but I am also quite fearful of what that administration is going to be replaced with. It's my view that the Federal Government under Bush has acted totally irresponsibly and has set a terrible example and precedent for the American people. Hopefully a new administration will act in a much more ethical and law abiding manner.

Update Feb. 2, 2010 - Udall & Bennet as incredible as this may sound, both Senators Udall & Bennet voted to reinstate Bernanke for another four years.. From above, it is obvious that many saw the debacle coming. Our wonderful clueless leaders, surrounded by their own out-of-touch world, thought everything was fine. Either that or the power brokers and handlers in Washington told Bernanke and the others to stay out of the bank & Wall Street dealings. Either way and as a result, the taxpayer was called upon to cover for the mistakes of the Bush administration in addition to Bernanke's mistakes. Even today (Feb. 2010), the taxpayers of this country are hurting financially because of the mistakes of Bernanke and others. Again, I'm with Paul Farrell.

There are many that claim to know the future direction of the stock market. I have chosen to focus on a fellow known as Paul Farrell. He is one of only a tiny handful of financial gurus that have correctly called events on Wall Street. Paul's vision of the future is not very pretty. For the average citizen, being forewarned, however, is being forearmed. I do know that one needs to be very careful of everything now coming out of Wall Street and the Government. Update Feb. 25, 2010 - So you won't become too confident in the near term, There are three new items/articles you should review. The first is an article/parable from Slate Magazine , the 2nd is a Wikipedia article about Charles Munger and the last is the latest article by Paul Farrell. Here's hoping you survive the future.

• Death Of Capitalism
• Economy Still At The Brink
• Warning I
• Warning II
• The End
• Liars Poker
• Warning Summary

• Debt Time Bomb.
• Bernanke Vote Tally
• The Totally Clueless Economists
• More Taxes - Soon
• 25 To Blame
• Shilling's Predicitions
• Moral Responsibility
• Paulson's Mistake
• Believe Anything?
• Corporate Tax Deadbeats
• The State Level Tax Story
• Government Lies
• More Government Lies
• Plunge Protection Team (PPT)
• Dollar Value Index
• National Debt
• Over Population Site
• World Population Clock
• Way Too Many
• Paul Farrell
• 2011 Crash?
• Slate Magazine Parable
• Who Is Charles Munger