Brits selling kidneys to pay off debt

Whoa, this kind of stuff used to happen in third world regions, exclusively. Nice to see that Times Online still has the courage to tell stories as they are, against Bernanke's late message of "recovery".


"
British victims of the credit crunch are offering to sell their kidneys for £25,000 or more to help pay debts... One person willing to sell a kidney is a 26-year-old mental health nurse who said he needed the money to pay debts after a business he set up went bankrupt. Another is a 43-year-old taxi driver from Lancashire, who wants to raise cash to pay off some of his mortgage and buy a new kitchen.
"

Of course, some of these folks got into so much debt due to reckless borrowing and spending. Past mistakes do not just go away, decisions result in consequences. What happened to the contingency plans? Or did they all have the same standpoint, "K, I'll just sell a kidney to pay it off some day, how bad could it be?" It's bad.

Global shipping decline 2009

The Canadians have the courage to uphold truth, instead of the "recession is over" rhetoric from American and New Zealand central banks. The credit contraction phase has not eased in any means, reality bites.

NZ Recession over! (sarcasm)

Apparently, the same day that he declared the recession "technically" over, New Zealand bankers paraphrased it within the hour. I suppose this means that the escalating GDP decline is "technically" a sign of Happy Days returning.

... and that the unemployed folks are "technically" all just dirty liars.

Even the part time jobs have diminished. The question is then, why do the central banks want average folks to believe in a come back? More likely than not, the banks are preparing to take large short positions, and need liquidity from the "mom & pop" investors stupid enough to repeat the finance company mistakes.

Corporate earnings decline

Robert Schiller at Yale Department of Economics updates the above, an inflation adjuted S&P500 earnings value. This explains the presently extraordinarily high P/E value of 140+. Simply unprecedented.

Some propose the Federal Reserve interventions lately have upheld the bubble despite the deteriorating economy, evidenced with GDP at -3.9%, inflation at -2.1%, and escalating Jobless Claims (tradingeconomics.com). Sooner or later, reality will set in and the horrifying mean reversion will come.

It will take place with either extreme inflation, dramatic equity price drops. Given that inflation stands negatively today, the decline will probably occur first, then the dollar crisis. Nice to have some excitement to look forward to, huh!