WHERE IS THE HOPE?

These sources come from a video posted by Victory Vision. Click on the link and it will take you to it. Anyone with money in the market really needs to start thinking about whether it's time to get out. I know, I'm just a carpenter. You don't have to be a financial genius to realize that something is wrong when the market goes up and there is nothing to support it; beyond happy thoughts and the massive infusion of our money by way of the government. Fortunately, I'm so broke I don't have to worry about this. The only market that sees my money is the grocery store. But, I know people that are still in, that still believe it's coming back. I don't want to see them lose it all, or at least a big chunk of it. Somebody tell me I'm wrong, that there is real reason for hope. This dumb, broke country boy just doesn't see it.

Retail sales outside of autos turned in a disappointing performance in July, underscoring concerns about the timing and durability of a recovery from the worst recession since World War II.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that retail sales fell 0.1 percent last month. Economists had expected a gain of 0.7 percent.
Yahoo

The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes rose 7 percent from June to July, as the escalating foreclosure crisis continued to outpace government efforts to limit the damage.

Foreclosure filings were up 32 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. More than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee's sale. That's the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.
Yahoo

On a side street in an old industrial neighborhood, a delivery man stacks a dolly of goods outside a store. Ten feet away stands another man clad in military fatigues, combat boots and what appears to be a flak jacket. He looks straight out of Baghdad. But this isn't Iraq. It's southeast Detroit, and he's there to guard the groceries.

"No pictures, put the camera down," he yells. My companion and I, on a tour of how people in this city are using urban farms to grow their own food, speed off.
CNN

Stagnant unemployment, shrinking tax revenue and a struggling economy threaten to quadruple the size of last year's federal budget deficit, raising more questions about the timing of costly proposals to overhaul health care.
As the White House and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepare to release new deficit estimates this month, several economists say the news is likely to be as bad as or worse than forecasts.
USA Today

Home price declines in the U.S. accelerated in the second quarter, dropping by a record 15.6 percent from a year earlier, as foreclosures weighed on values.

The median price of an existing single-family home dropped to $174,100, the most in records dating to 1979, the National Association of Realtors said today. Total sales rose 3.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.76 million from the first quarter and fell 2.9 percent from 2008’s second quarter.
Bloomberg

Despite signs that the financial system has stabilized, banks remain threatened by billions of dollars of bad loans on their balance sheets, and more could fail if the economy worsens, a congressional watchdog reports.

In its latest assessment of the $700 billion financial system bailout, the Congressional Oversight Panel warns that banks still hold many risky loans of uncertain value. If unemployment rises sharply or the commercial real estate market collapses - as many economists fear - the banking system could again lose its footing, the panel says in a report to be released Tuesday.
AP News

In concert with the claims I made in the prior Martenson Insider post, The Fed bought $7 billion in Treasuries today and even more yesterday.

This is at the upper end of their recent range of already exceptional purchasing activity.

If things are so rosy that every single dip is being bought in the stock market with a vengeance, I wonder why these printing operations are really necessary?
Chris Martenson

Consumer bankruptcies surged in July to their highest level since October 2005 as U.S. households struggle under the burden of past debt and rising unemployment.

Total filings reached 126,434 in July, a 34.3% increase from the same period a year ago and an 8.7% increase over June, according to a report released Tuesday from the the American Bankruptcy Institute.

The number of filings was the highest monthly total since the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act went into effect in October 2005.
CNN