American Insanity: How to Buy a Home in Martha’s Vineyard with Zero Money Down

The absurd new housing bubble created by Banana Ben Bernanke’s cheap money, private equity slumlords and crony foreign oligarchs looking to launder their ill-gotten funds, continues to provide what would be hilarious headlines if only they weren’t so sad.  In the following story, we find that courtesy of the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the struggling folks on Martha’s Vineyard have access to zero money down home loans.  The USDA you ask? Well, it turns out that the “entire island is designated as a rural area eligible for a USDA loan.”  Why do we even have a government at this point?

From CNBC:

The zero down mortgage is back—in Martha’s Vineyard.

Ira Stoll at the Future of Capitalism bloghas come across an article on “Home Buying 101″ in the spring of 2013 “Real Estate & Homes” supplement to the Vineyard Gazette. A local mortgage broker by the name of Polly K. Bassett is quoted as touting how.

Bassett, the “co-owner and a broker of Martha’s Vineyard Mortgage Company, L.L.C., said: “We have access to a wide range of programs such as USDA, which is a program where you can put no money down, 100 percent financing, and we also do a 97 percent financing with three percent down….There are a lot of programs out there for people buying their first home.”

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The Bitcoin ATM Reports 300+ Orders in 30 Different Countries

As I highlighted last week in my post about how leading Bitcoin payment processor, BitPay Inc., is adding 1,000 merchants a month on a base on 4,000 merchants, the growth of the market is happening at a mind-boggling pace. Now we learn from Jeff Berwick that the Bitcoin ATM machine has received an incredible 300 orders in 30 different countries. This was no doubt catalyzed by the Cyprus theft. Jeff was interviewed on CNBC today, which you can watch below.

Obama Wins 8 of the Nation’s 10 Wealthiest Counties…Impressive Stats for a “Socialist”

I just love these statistics posted by CNBC yesterday:

In an election that often focused on debates about class warfare, President Barack Obama was favored over multimillionaire businessman Mitt Romney in eight of the nation’s 10 wealthiest counties.

For a guy that supposedly wants to redistribute wealth, the wealthiest people sure do seem to like him.  The sad truth of the matter is that Obama is doing one simple thing.  He is paying off the poor via food stamps and disability checks so that they stay in line while the oligarchs steal everything in sight.  The middle class is squeezed in the process and is rapidly disappearing.  So in a way he is a wealth distributor, just not in the way the pundits would have you believe.  He is funneling the wealth or the middle class and non-oligarch rich to the super rich oligarchs.  The poor just get paid off to shut-up as usual.  I am once again reminded of Keynes’ famous quote:

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.

So there we have it.  Obama the socialist? No. Obama the crony capitalist coddler?  Most definitely.

Read the CNBC article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

In the Latest Euro Area Peace News: The Swiss Army Prepares for Unrest

Go Europe!

From CNBC:

The Swiss defense ministry told CNBC that it doesn’t rule out having to deploy troops in the coming years.

It launched the military exercise “Stabilo Due” in September to respond to the current instability in Europe and to test the speed at which its army can be dispatched. The country is not a member of the union or among the 17 countries that share the euro.

Some 2,000 troops were part of the drill exercise in eight different towns across the country. Infantry soldiers were used as well as the air force and special forces personnel in an assignment that took years to organize.

Full article here.

Watch Bill Gates Stutter Like a Moron on Gold

You know the system is in trouble when it rolls out every multi-billionaire status quo gatekeeper to appear on CNBC and regurgitate the same trite propaganda lines to scare people away from protecting their financial well being via the one asset that has proven timeless and portable for thousands of years.  What the sheeple still cannot get through their minds thanks to constant misdirection from people such as Bill Gates “being on the same page” as Buffett and Charlie “only Jews about to be gassed should buy gold” Munger on the subject of precious metals is that government can and will steal your money and assets when they are backed into a corner.  While you can’t sow your E*TRADE account or steel plant into your garments you can with gold.

Billy Gates’ comments on gold are so ridiculous only a caveman could believe them.  He uses a lot of fear tactics in the brief commentary.  He uses the tried and true what if the “IMF and Central Banks start selling” line.  This is hilarious because it is only very recently that Central Banks have been net buyers of gold after decades of selling.  Furthermore, the emerging market Central Banks, especially China, have merely 1%-5% of their FX reserves in gold (no one knows the exact number) so they will take every ounce the Western Central Banks are stupid enough to put up for sale.  He implies that Central Banks could sell gold because it does “nothing for its citizens.”  A more ridiculous statement has never been uttered.  First of all why would these sophisticated financial wizards running these institutions hold gold in the first place?  Why would Nixon close the gold window in 1971 to prevent the loss of more U.S. gold if gold doesn’t matter?  Why would all the up and coming economies be buying it and why are some of the smartest investors in the world buying physical gold?  Gates is trying to imply these investors are all stupid, mentally weak individuals.  Finally, as if what these governments are doing at the moment is good for their citizens?!  Yeah, just look at the skyrocketing suicide rate in Greece for your proof.  I’m sorry the best thing a government can do is to hold as much gold as possible for its citizens so they have a chance to start over once this house of cards implodes publicly.

He also states that once people want to sell “there is no floor.”  I mean come on man.  Gold is the only currency that has survived purchasing power intact since the ancient Egyptians.  The worst part about him saying all this publicly is that he is actively discouraging the sheeple who actually listen to him from protecting themselves.  That is morally repugnant.

Here is the video. 

Mike