Great Depression 2I'm writing this from the beautiful Marco Island, Florida, as we prepare for the 7th WMI m2 Wealth Conference. Outside its gorgeous, but inside...watching the stock market...isa totally different environment.

Last Thursday I called for a bear market rally when the Dow was down over 300 points. A huge rally began within 30 minutes and we closed up 550 points for the day. An 850 point move in less than 3 hours….amazing. These kinds of moves used to take several days or even weeks to happen, …

For those that are brave enough to trade this market, hopefully you’ve been using the advice I’ve provided with both SDS and SSO on my newsletter at www.vraletter.com. When I put out the update “What to Buy for a Bear Market Rally” at about 11 AM the market was down 300 points …

Fire Hank Paulson Now The Wall Street Journal says that the original $700 billion bailout will not be enough (surprise surprise) which makes it likely that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will be forced to go back before Congress and ask for still more money. Just amazing. Congress has a chance to do the right thing …

We bail out AIG, Fannie, Freddie and the banks to save our system from collapse...they are just too big to fail. Now we have to bail out GM, Ford and Chrysler ( I mean Cerebus, the super secretive private equity firm that owns Chrysler) for the same reason. Trust me, it won't end there....and it won't stop with us bailing out just US co's.

Following the Richard Nixon disgrace of a Presidency, a little known Georgia Govenor became the 39th U.S. President. Out of nowhere, Jimmy Carter came to power in 1976 with a mandate to reform and restore the country's reputation, and hope was seemingly restored.

This now famous line was attributed to George H Bush's mishandling of his re-election bid, when Bill Clinton's victory turned Bush into a one term President. The economy was in the dumps in the year leading up to the election and Bush seemed oblivious to the recession that the country was entering.

At the risk of some personal embarrassment, I'll be shocked if Obama loses today. Every poll that I respect has him winning in a landslide, so it looks like we will have a democrat in the office for at least the next 4 years. In my opinion, this is not so much a vote for Obama …

Its common knowledge of course that the US no longer makes anything...not really anyway.We import all of that "stuff" now. Soon, we will have the Big 2 instead of the Big 3, and you can pretty much write-off anything that is manufacturing related...

This bear market has lots of people scratching their heads, especially the so-called gurus of capitalism and self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe (by the way, this is a great time to go back and read Tom Wolf's classic from the 1980's,

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The stock markets around the globe have been absolutely battered. While the US is down over 43%, most foreign markets are off over 50-80% from their highs….just brutal…and amazingly fast. We’re looking at something like $10 trillion in global market losses in just the last couple of months.

Just a follow-up to this mornings update. Beginning tomorrow we will begin to see coordinated rate cuts globally, and the US FED will aggressively drop lending rates to approximately 1%....or an all-time low.

Right in front of our eyes we are witnessing the most serious threat to our financial system in 70 years, and anyone that tells you that it’s almost over is either guessing or just hoping. I’ll go so far as to say that I believe CNBC will face a huge class action lawsuit in the coming days and weeks,

So...will this finally be the blow off? The 1000 point down Friday, followed by another black Monday? It sure looks like it and as I've been writing, this will get very ugly before its all over. I would not be surprised to see some real panic finally start to set in.

Today, before Congress, God, and everybody, our old buddy Alan Greenspan will be speaking about subprime lending, the debt crisis and the resulting recession. And more specifically, about his role in it. Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman under Bush, Clinton,

Many of us experienced the inaugural m3 together. No doubt about it…one of the best experiences of a lifetime. Hungary is a truly beautiful country that has rebuilt itself, time and time again, from more wars than most can even remember.

Anyone watching CNBC, and listening to their advice, is getting their heads handed to them in this market. They are doing everything they can to be positive and "talk the market higher" and of course they are dead wrong. This recession is going to be the worst of our lifetime and 99% of the population is not prepared for it.

How time flys...the older I get the faster that clock ticks. Remember when you were a kid and it seemed to take forever for that school bell to ring at 3? I guess this means that we just have to take advantage of every waking moment. I like that game plan.

I woke up this morning to CNBC and more negative earnings results, and thought back to my days as a financial advisor and venture capitalist. Its never been more difficult for the average person to invest in the stock market and don't look for that to change anytime soon. People are waking up to the reality of this economic crisis and wondering if they should get out,