Our regular viewers know that we have been somewhat obsessed with the ramifications of the real estate bubble bursting (see our special report, "Potential Catalyst-Real Estate," September 2003 on left side of our home page).  Now even Fed Chairman Bernanke has caught on to the dangers of the bursting of the bubble.  He stated in both Tuesday's and Wednesday's testimony before Congress, "the housing market is the central element of the financial crisis.  Anything we and Congress can do to strengthen the housing market, or strengthen the mortgage financing market, will be helpful.  We can do this by restoring confidence in the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs)."  We are happy to have Mr.[More]
 

Last week we made a few predictions about the rest of this year and those predictions would have to be considered unconventional, to say the least.  We predicted that the U.S. recession would spread abroad and move through the euro-zone and eventually Asia.  The short explanation of this process was also touched on in the last comment, "the end of the insatiable appetite for foreign goods and services by the U.S. consumer will have a major negative effect on foreign economies". 

Now that the U.S. consumer has "hit a wall" the rest of the world will have to suffer.  Remember, the U.S. has about 3 times more GDP than the next largest economy.  The U.S.[More]
 

The bearish view on earnings makes the most sense.

Short-selling funds are ready to come out of hibernation.
Bear funds have had a rough run the past two years, as their strategy of betting against stocks has put them on the wrong side of a solid bull market.[More]