The Fed cranks the printing press as easily as a child cranks a Jack-in-the-Box... But eventually, "POP goes the weasel"...

Video from: http://inflation.us/videos.html

Student loans make education affordable for everyone...or do they?

As the slumping economy continues to worsen, questions had to be asked and answered. The United States Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was in the hot seat today over the financial crisis, he was asked questions of why the economy crashed in 2008. Nomi Prins says that Bernanke was treated lightly and it appears he has not learned from the collapse in 2008 as he continues to make banks larger.

David Galland and Kevin Brekke
Casey Research

The other day, I came across an article that said, while individuals may be moving their money out of equities, they have been moving into bond funds – and in a big way.

It’s called jumping from the frying fan into the fire.

Based on my experience as a co-founder of a mutual fund group, I can tell you that if there is one sure thing in this world, it’s that when investors rush en masse into an investment category, it is invariably at almost exactly the wrong time to do so. Is that the case with today’s rush into bonds?

A search of the U.S. Postal Office website shows that - as of April 2008 - the relevant web page did not have any reference to SDRs. The most recent revisions to this web page were made on July 30, 2010. However, I cannot tell whether the references to SDRs were added in the most recent July revision, or in a previous edit.

WASHINGTON — The unemployment rate rose in August for the first time in four months as weak hiring by private employers wasn't enough to keep pace with a large increase in the number of people looking for work.

Forest fires have flared up again in Russia, this time in the south, forcing hundreds of people to leave their homes. 20 villages in the region of Volgograd have been affected so far. Temperatures here have topped 40 degrees celsius in recent days.

This is a local disaster with potentially global consequences.

Officials now say Russia’s embargo on the export of wheat will not be lifted before next year’s harvest.

Get used to the idea: Cash is dead.

And if you don't believe it, just ask such cashless giants as PayPal, MasterCard and Visa. At the very least, they are working overtime with slick propaganda to make us think so.

Currently on Maestro's website ("Maestro" is the name of MasterCard's UK-based debit card) is a slide show where you can see the following pithy slogans flash past:

DON'T SHOW ME THE MONEY.

LEAVE CASH ON THE SHELF.

MONEY WITHOUT THE HEADACHE.

BURGER & FRIES WITHOUT ALL THE POUNDS.

Nicholas West
Activist Post

We are all workers in the corporation called The New World Order. This corporation has led us to believe that we are part of a world at its peak, where only banking interests can respond to the dwindling supplies. Naturally, we are supposed to adhere to the policies of the corporation in order to be saved.

Why do we always have to learn and relearn our history the hard way?

"The Rothschilds, and that class of money-lenders of whom they are the representatives and agents--men who never think of lending a shilling to their next-door neighbors, for purposes of honest industry, unless upon the most ample security, and at the highest rate of interest--stand ready, at all times, to lend money in unlimited amounts to those robbers and murderers, who call themselves governments, to be expended in shooting down those who do not submit quietly to being robbed and enslaved.

Marin Katusa
Chief Energy Strategist
Casey’s Energy Opportunities

The International Energy Association (IEA) has spoken. What the world needs now is a clean energy technology revolution.

June saw the 2010 launch of IEA’s biannual report, Energy Technology Perspectives. Speaking at the launch was Nobuo Tanaka, executive director for IEA. The Gulf oil spill, he said, could prove to be a tipping point in the world’s energy consumption habits. He added that the disaster serves as a tragic reminder that our current path is not sustainable.

Christina Romer, outgoing Chairwoman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, today called for more government spending and less taxes as a way to bring down unemployment. The combination of more government spending and less taxes equals massive inflation, but this represents the state of mind in Washington today. Inflation is still the last thing on their minds because they don't see it yet.

Rising gold and silver prices indicate that the U.S. is headed for an explosion in budget deficits that will rise far beyond what it can pay for through borrowing. Leading Chinese economists are now calling Japanese debt less risky than U.S. debt and with the Japanese savings rate in decline, the U.S. will soon have nobody left to borrow from. The only option will be monetization and already the Federal Reserve is getting ready to buy $10 billion to $30 billion per month in U.S. treasuries to keep its balance sheet at inflated levels.

Conspiracy theory is a term that originally was a neutral descriptor for any claim of civil, criminal or political conspiracy. However, it has come almost exclusively to refer to any fringe theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by conspirators of almost superhuman power and cunning. To conspire means "to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end. "The term "conspiracy theory" is frequently used by scholars and in popular culture to identify secret military, banking, or political actions aimed at stealing power, money, or freedom, from "the people".

1. Hold game night tournaments: Invite family and friends over for fun and games at home instead of paying for pricey movie tickets and concessions.

2. Consider split-shift child-care: Parents take turns taking care of children based on their work schedule rather than placing them in daycare...

OMAHA, Neb. — More than a third of supply managers in nine Midwest and Plains states surveyed for a regional business index expect a recession in 2011.

As part of the Mid-America report released Wednesday, supply managers were asked their expectations for 2011, and 35 percent said a recession was likely or very likely.

In times of crisis people seek strong leaders and simple solutions. But what if their solutions are identical to the mistakes that caused the very crisis? This is the story of the greatest economic crisis of our age, the one that awaits us.

It is the private sector that actually creates wealth. But unfortunately, over the last several decades we have allowed that wealth to become highly concentrated. Now the giant global predator corporations have decided that American workers aren't really that desirable after all. They are slowly taking away their factories and their offices and they are moving them to where people are willing to work for one-tenth the pay.

So where does that leave middle class American "consumers"?

Well, it leaves us in a world of hurt.

The following are 15 key economic statistics that just keep getting worse and which reveal the horrific economic plight in which we now find ourselves....

Then what finances the deficit? Don’t look for an answer from either side of The Great Stimulus Debate. They haven’t a clue despite the fact that the answer is obvious.

The Federal Reserve will monetize the federal government deficit. The result will be high inflation, possibly hyper-inflation and high unemployment simultaneously.

The no-think economics establishment has no policy response for economic armageddon, assuming they are even capable of recognizing it.

Economists who have spent their professional lives rationalizing “globalism” as good for America have no idea of the disaster that they have wrought.

Any serious effort to understand the extraordinary influence of the Zionist power configuration over US foreign policy must examine the presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government andlocal Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders.

There are at least 52 major American Jewish organizations actively engaged in promoting Israel’s foreign policy, economic and technological agenda in the US (see the appendix).

Chris Wood, Editor
Casey Research

Here at Casey Research, we really don’t enjoy being a buzz-kill. It’s just that we think it’s more important for investors to be well informed about the reality in which we find ourselves today than it is to be happy-go-lucky all the time.

The good news is that when the stuff hits the fan, as it has for going on two years now, it opens up a number of unexpected opportunities for profit. Even in the hairiest situations, there are ways to protect yourself.

Brian Mitchell
Activist Post

By now it is common knowledge the healthcare system in the USA is a disaster. It was a disaster before the recent “overhaul," and I’m betting is will be an even bigger disaster after the new laws actually go into effect.

For the record, I’m a proponent of public healthcare, and I was actually looking forward to the Obama administration fixing this issue. The result they gave us is not a fix, though; it’s not even a Band-Aid. What it is, is a flat out screw job to every U.S. citizen, along with a massive payday for the private insurance agencies. Why else would insurance company stocks go up after this new bill was passed? Apparently someone expects them to make a lot more money going forward, and honestly I can’t see how they’d be wrong.

What's needed has been obvious to independent observers for years: Break up the big banks, prosecute the criminals whose fraud caused the financial crisis, and restore the rule of law and transparency.

Until those basic steps are taken, nothing else will work to fix our broken economy.

The last resource of the fed will be money printing to fix the economy. We all know where is that ends..

The U.S. is broke. Public Employee Unions refuse to void their unconscionable contracts. The taxpayer can no longer afford this destructive fraud. Society can only be rejuvenated through a total downsizing of all public services. The biggest deadbeats that skim off the system are your phony public servants. The only bright spot from a collapse and natural bankruptcy is the evaporation of the public sector. Can you say Bye Bye to those decadent pensions? The government wants total control and public employees have made their – UNION – bargain with the devil.

.....That's right, the bottom 80% of this nation only hold 7% of its wealth! When I came across that statistic I was floored. As far as the top 20% of Americans, the top 1% of Americans holds 42.7% of this nation's wealth, while the other top 19% hold 50.5%.

As I see it, that is quite a disparity in social classes. I'm surprised that people haven't made this a centerpiece in political circles. If the Democrats were really the party of the average working people of this nation, why isn't the disparity between the haves and have not's brought to everyone's attention? If I were running for political office, I would be driving that point home to the average American voter every chance I had. I think that maybe most of the politicians that currently hold public office don't really want that information to be something that families talk about over the dinner table. The reason is probably because most Congressmen and Senators belong to the top 20% that own 93.3% of the nation's wealth, or that they believe they will enter that bracket sooner than later.

A record number of people are living on government handouts in the US, as one out of six Americans now gets various anti-poverty supports, including food stamps...

September could be the month Blockbuster Inc. finds its way to bankruptcy court.

The Dallas-based company has been warning for almost two years that it might need bankruptcy court protection to reorganize its nearly $1 billion in debt, as it struggles with dwindling cash and a shrinking business hurt by competition and its own store closings...

Never have so few, done so little, and made so much, while screwing so many.

In 2005, the top 25 hedge fund managers "earned" $9 billion, or an average of $360 million. One year after a financial collapse caused by the financial innovations peddled by Wall Street, the top 25 hedge fund managers paid themselves $25 billion, or an average of $1 billion a piece. For some perspective, there were 7 million unemployed Americans in 2006. Today there are 14.6 million unemployed Americans. While the country plunges deeper into Depression, the barbarians pick up the pace of their plundering and looting of the remaining wealth of the nation. Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva pointed out a basic truth in 2007, before the financial collapse.

Never have so few, done so little, and made so much, while screwing so many.

In 2005, the top 25 hedge fund managers "earned" $9 billion, or an average of $360 million. One year after a financial collapse caused by the financial innovations peddled by Wall Street, the top 25 hedge fund managers paid themselves $25 billion, or an average of $1 billion a piece. For some perspective, there were 7 million unemployed Americans in 2006. Today there are 14.6 million unemployed Americans. While the country plunges deeper into Depression, the barbarians pick up the pace of their plundering and looting of the remaining wealth of the nation. Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva pointed out a basic truth in 2007, before the financial collapse.

Michael Edwards & Jeffrey Green
Activist Post

By all honest accounts, 2010 has been a terrible year for traditional agriculture worldwide. Extended severe weather events have cut many crop harvests in half. Farmers are going bankrupt as crops fail, commodity prices are exploding, and millions of people more have been added to the list of those who go hungry on a regular basis. Already a record 40 million Americans are receiving food stamps at a time when economy is a disaster and state and Federal governments are essentially bankrupt.

While the Tea Party will be out supporting Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin this weekend, you wonder how many of them will be in full support of more wars and paying more interest to a group of untouchable and unauditable private bankers otherwise known as the FED? This is precisely what Ron Paul is asking the American public to consider when looking at the Tea Party leaders and see if they really stand for what they believe in.

Ron Paul believes the Tea Party is not about “left” or “right” like a lot of political pundits make it out to be. It’s about the constitution, and limited government.

NEW YORK — Stocks edged lower Monday as investors took a cautious approach to trading before the government's latest report on the jobs market.

A new report showed personal spending credit higher last month, but it had little affect on trading, even though shoppers returning to stores would help the economy. Investor enthusiasm was not strong after the report because traders are skeptical spending will continue to grow long-term without significant increases in hiring.

Who is behind this? The FED since it greatly benefits due to the monetary scheme called "fractional banking"

The Death Of Cash? All Over The World Governments Are Banning Large Cash Transactions

Economic Collapse Blog
Monday, August 30, 2010

In February 2009, the head of U.S. intelligence - Dennis Blair - said that the global financial crisis was the largest threat to America's national security. All of America's intelligence agencies apparently agreed.

The same month, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - Admiral Mullen - also agreed.

Now, Mullen is focusing on a specific economic threat. Specifically, Mullen is focusing on the debt:

The national debt is the single biggest threat to national security, according to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012, the chairman told students and local leaders in Detroit.

By Mike Whitney ( Information Clearing House)

– Robert Herz was forced to resign from his job as chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) because he insisted that the banks assign a fair value to their assets. That’s not what you’ll read in the papers, but it’s true just the same. Herz was a major proponent of mark-to-market accounting, a simple means of determining the value of a bond or security by comparing the price of similar assets sold at market. In other words, Herz is a defender of universally-accepted accounting principles, which is why he was terminated, er, I mean, resigned. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Capital Hill is awash in Wall Street's filthy lucre, which means that congress will block any law that threatens the main profit-centers of the big banks or brokerage houses. HFT, complex derivatives, securitization and repo transactions will all be preserved in their present state until the next big tremor rumbles through lower Manhattan bringing the markets down in a thunderous roar. Make sure the bunker is well stocked.

“OVERDOSE: The Next Financial Crisis, 1/3” This movie summarizes in layman's terms why the economy crashed and that the worst is yet to come.

“OVERDOSE: The Next Financial Crisis, 2/3”

“OVERDOSE: The Next Financial Crisis, 3/3”

If you can still put a roof over your head and food on the table for your family, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. There are millions of Americans out there right now that are really, really suffering. The cold, hard reality of it is that there aren't even close to enough jobs out there for everyone right now. It is almost as if we are all caught in a really bizarre game of musical chairs where the losers get stripped of their tickets to the middle class. What this horrible economy is doing to the dignity of millions of middle class Americans is incredibly saddening. There are a lot of very highly educated and very hard working Americans who cannot seem to get jobs no matter what they do and now find themselves doing whatever they can just to survive. It can be really hard to keep your dignity when you played by all the rules and you worked as hard as you could all your life and now you find yourself a half step away from being homeless. Those of us who are still doing okay should never look down on those who are struggling in this economy, because the truth is that any of us could be next.

In the end, the elites will be overthrown and a power vacuum will form. The transition period will be extremely difficult as the elites will fight their demise to the end. For you see, they care nothing for you they care about their power and control. Nevertheless, rulers have always only ruled by the will (or apathy) of the people and when the people become overly taxed and abused they always rebel. The main thing to think about is what kind of society do we want to rebuild from the ashes. I am of the view that it must be a return to the Constitution and an elimination of central banking power and secrecy. Let’s not fall for a demagogue or be pushed into a war when things are at their worst.

Most Americans still appear to be operating under the delusion that the "recession" will soon pass and that things will get back to "normal" very soon. Unfortunately, that is not anywhere close to the truth. What we are now witnessing are the early stages of the complete and total breakdown of the U.S. economic system. The U.S. government, state governments, local governments, businesses and American consumers have collectively piled up debt that is equivalent to approximately 360 percent of GDP. At no point during the Great Depression (or at any other time during our history) did we ever come close to such a figure. We have piled up the biggest mountain of debt that the world has ever seen, and now that gigantic debt bubble is beginning to pop.

The U.S. birth rate has dropped for the second year in a row, and experts think the wrenching recession led many people to put off having children. The 2009 birth rate also set a record: lowest in a century.

Births fell 2.7 percent last year even as the population grew, numbers released Friday by the National Center for Health Statistics show.

"It's a good-sized decline for one year. Every month is showing a decline from the year before," said Stephanie Ventura, the demographer who oversaw the report.

This short video explains one of the most persistent economic fallacies of our day.

Laugh Obama, laugh! As you distract & pimp the peoples’ pain
By Larry Pinkney
Aug 27, 2010, 00:20
Barack Obama did not rise from relative national obscurity on his own to become President of the United States. He was aided and abetted by the CIA/corporate complex with the eager and able assistance of the corporate-stream media. The CIA successfully subverted and manipulated so-called democracy in this nation with the blindly euphoric installment of Barack Obama as the first “black” president of this country.....it is absolutely no coincidence that some who seek to expose Barack Obama and/or U.S. government lies, often find themselves as the targets of “dirty trick” activities of vicious discreditation, or imprisoned, or mysteriously disappeared, or yes, even murdered.

...Petrak, a professional fitness specialist who prefers cycling in St. Petersburg because it has less traffic, rode another block and stopped at a red light. A motorcycle officer pulled up behind her and gave her a $166 ticket...

How the economy has changed since 2008, including the golden indicator.

"Gold gives us peak into the future" Link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/demand-for-gold-rises-36-in-the-secon...

"Home Sales plunge month to month, most EVER 27%" Link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/existing-home-sales-plunge-272-in-jul...

"New Home sales and manufactured goods drop" Link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bad-news-on-homes-goods-adds-apf-3029003...

David Galland
Partner, Casey Research

The latest data on global gold trends, Q2 2010, just popped into my email box from the World Gold Council.

The bad news is that the higher nominal price of gold has caused a 5% decrease in jewelry sales over the prior year.

If you’re thinking “Hey, that’s not that bad!”, you’d be right. On this date last year, gold closed at $950… which is $286 below where it trades as I write. In other words, a 30% rise in price has resulted in a decrease of just 5% in jewelry sales.

The share of young people aged 16 to 24 who were employed this summer fell to 48.9 percent -- the lowest rate on record since 1948.

Meanwhile, the raw number of youth who held jobs in July 2010 actually rose by 1.8 million from July 2009 to 18.6 million...

The Palm Beach County Convention Center filled again today with tales of mortgage woe.

Before dawn, with a plump moon overhead, a line of desperate homeowners trailed around the outside of the building. They slept in beach chairs or on blankets on the ground, refugees from a bad economy, bad loans, or bad decisions...

Based on the mushrooming number of survival-type shows on cable, we're either in a world of hurt or should know how to prepare for one...

Today our reported National Debt is $13.362 TRILLION. This is the first big lie. There are two entities named Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that happen to be 80% owned by the US government. Anyone who thinks these two companies can operate without the backing of the US Government is delusional. The US taxpayer is on the hook for these two disastrously run companies. Somehow, government accounting doesn’t require their debt to be considered the responsibility of the US taxpayer. This is a fraud, pure and simple. Their debt is our debt.

Dr. Lawrence Davidson
We invaded a country and overthrew its dictator. Americans might take pride in that accomplishment if it were not for the fact that we did so on false pretenses. In other words, we initiated war on the basis of lies rather than actual self-defense. Such an action constitutes the most serious of international crimes. It is the one for which the Nazi leaders were tried at Nuremberg.

Firstly we would like to recommend an excellent article by Adrian Douglas, editor of Market Force Analysis and a GATA board member entitled “Gold Market is not “Fixed”, it’s Rigged” which goes into great detail on the statistics behind the difference between how gold trades between the AM and PM fix, and how it trades from the PM to AM fix. The very fact that there appears to be a significance difference sets our alarm bells ringing. Whether gold trades in New York, London, Tokyo or Timbuktu, gold is still gold and so one would expect that it would trade in a similar fashion across these timeframes over a long period of time.

Human World Order
Activist Post

Everyone on earth knows how fragile the economy is. It has pushed first-world countries to the brink of revolution. The pushing can't withstand much more before the pillars of civilization begin to fall. And once they begin falling, there may be no stopping them from collapsing society altogether. Unfortunately, the signs of further economic erosion are disturbingly obvious to the onlookers, and the remaining pillars are hanging on by a thread.

The US economy grew at a slower annual rate in the second quarter than previously estimated, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

The estimated rise in gross domestic product, the value of goods and services produced, for the period between April and June was revised down from 2.4pc to just 1.6pc, as companies reined in inventories and the trade deficit widened.

The revision – despite beating economists' estimates of a 1.4pc rise – would appear to provide further evidence that the recovery is losing steam.

The US economy enjoyed a 3.7pc expansion in the first quarter.

WEST PALM BEACH — Thousands of people are lined up this morning outside the Palm Beach County Convention Center - some arriving by the busload, hoping the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America will help them save their homes.

They are here from throughout the country, including Detroit and California.

"I'm here because I have to be," said P. Reed, who drove all night from South Carolina. "They put me in foreclosure last week."

The Obama administration is “taking the first steps to confiscate retirement dollars,” according to Dr. Jerome Corsi who predicts that the end result will be retirees with 401(k) plans holding near-worthless government debt “that will be paid off in a devalued currency worth … pennies on the dollar.”

Bishop Donald R.Corder
Now we are faced with reports of Zionist participation in blowing up the World Trade Center on 9/11. Articles are circulated throughout the Internet and alternative media channels, elaborating upon the Israeli government’s fabrication of intelligence and the subsequent war in Iraq, the subsequent execution of their rightful sovereign Saddam Hussein and murdering of hundreds of thousand of Iraqi civilians

The creation of money should be the sole prerogative of a sovereign government.

Why are private Wall Street banks too big too fail, but California isn?t?

Great, educational presentation. Worth reading!

It is a lazy afternoon. Or at least it was until I came across a blog by Mish. There was little in the post that I didn't know or suspect, but this quote triggered a reaction:

It hides the economic substance of what's really happening-an unlimited taxpayer bailout.

Theodore Herzl(founder of Zionism) :“We must arm ourselves with all the weapons which our opponents might employ against us. The intensification of armaments, the increase of police forces - are all essential for the completion of the aforementioned plans. We must be in a position to respond to every act of opposition by war with the neighbors of that country which dares to oppose us: but if these neighbors should also venture to stand collectively together against us, then we must offer resistance by a universal war

The story of mass-destruction weapons was fabricated; and here are the facts today which show that terrorism did not exist in Iraq before the war. It was the invaders who opened the doors wide open for terrorism. The ex-MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller confirmed to the Chilcot inquiry that “Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a few among a generation of young people who saw [it] as an attack upon Islam.” She adds: “There was no evidence of any link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida – not even the CIA believed that”.

A Boca Raton bank teller is accused of stealing nearly $37,000 from customers.

In just two months working at a JP Morgan Chase branch, 20-year-old Israel Conley allegedly forged customer signatures to withdraw huge sums from several accounts...

Sales of existing homes in the US plunged 27.2% in July compared with June to their lowest level in more than 10 years, figures suggest.

The main reason for the drop was the end of tax credits designed to boost sales.

Economists are rather gloomy about the US jobs market.

The US economy shed 131,000 jobs in July, the second month in a row that jobs had been lost.

Recent figures also showed that economic growth in the US slowed between April and June, with GDP growing by an annualised rate of 2.4% compared with 3.7% in the previous quarter.

Weaker-than-expected retail sales figures for July also added to concerns over the strength of the recovery of the world's largest economy.

By Jeff Clark, Casey's Gold and Resource Report

I get this question a lot: "Should I buy gold now, or wait for a pullback?"

It’s a valid question. For nearly two years, gold hasn't had a serious decline. There have been pullbacks, of course, but nothing assumption-challenging. In fact, since October 2008, gold’s largest price drop is 10.6% (based on London PM fix prices), and yet the average of all declines since 2001 is 13% (of those greater than 5%). The biggest pullback we've seen this summer is 8.2%. Technically the summer's not over, but I'll admit I'm surprised we haven't had a better buying opportunity.

Infiltration had been complete as the Zionist Elite seized control of the likes of World Bank, Federal Reserve System, The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), New York Board of Trade, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. James Stenzel presents...This Scholarly Library of Facts about Domestic & Worldwide Zionist Criminality. An Oasis of News for Americans Who Presently Endure the Hateful Censorship of Zionist Occupation.

National Inflation Association (NIA) believes that the decoupling we have been predicting of precious metals from the Dow Jones has now officially taken place. A year ago we would consistently see precious metals and stock market prices rise and fall in parallel. We have now seen the Dow Jones decline by 6.1% from its high on August 9th, along with both gold and silver rising by about 3.3% during this same time period.

American Eagle Outfitters Inc.'s (AEO) fiscal second-quarter earnings tumbled 66% on wider losses related to its failed Martin + Osa chain and as the apparel retailer reported weaker margins and higher overhead costs...

The first point I want to make is that if Washington made the mistake of nationalizing the GSEs, U.S. taxpayers would be exposed to up to $2 trillion in losses, if not more. Of course, Gross is the single largest shareholder of Fannie and Freddie bonds, so he stands to gain from this seemingly unconstitutional proposal.