Oct 15 2005 - The recent FED speak over the past couple weeks seems to indicate that they all the sudden want to get serious about raising interest rates to curb inflation (even after recently hinting they were already near neutral).

Well... I've got news for the FED; your too late... the high costs of energy and the business disruptions from Hurricanes is already doing the "choke job" on inflation that higher interest rates would normally do... don't believe me?; major American businesses have already started dropping like flies in just the past month and a half... and as these big corporations go through bankruptcy (and some other big co's inevitably file B.K.) many more smaller businesses that depend on these larger businesses will also be reduced to business failures.

If the FED wanted to responsibly deflate some of the inflation in the real estate market, it'd move immediately by eliminating the usury-like real estate lending practices, IE: interest-only mortgages, no-equity mortgages, mortgages that exceed the value of the property, etc., in fact, by just allowing these high risk mortgages is irresponsible in itself, and is a major source of capital for speculative inflation... these high risk lending practices also act as potentially de-stabilizing forces for the real estate market in the long-term.

Tightening the supply of capital (outside of the high risk real estate lending practices) any further in the short-term at this critical juncture of historic natural disaster will just make a worsening situation deteriorate further... in fact, by raising rates during this historic period illustrates the weakness, not strength of the US economy in that it shows just how little confidence the FED has in its own recent past management of inflation in the economy... showing the FED was behind the inflation curve, and now has dangerously chosen to raise rates in the short-term during a period of unprecedented catastrophic natural disaster that has yet to be fully quantified.

And oh ya... remember what happened to the stock markets the last time the FED went on an extended interest rate raising cycle???... ya, that's right, it turned into a big "BLOW-UP"... but this time they've got Hurricanes, lots and lots of Hurricanes... I wonder what the Hurricane season of 2006 will be like?... I'm betting there will be at least 3 major Hurricanes make landfall on the USA in 2006...

RECENT BANKRUPTCY FILINGS;

• Oct 05 - Refco files bankruptcy, has approx. 2,448 employees.
   

• Oct 05 - Delphi files bankruptcy, has approx. 185,000 employees.
   

• Sept 05 - Entergy New Orleans files bankruptcy, number of NO Entergy employees N/A.
   

• Sept 05 - Northwest Airlines files bankruptcy, has approx. 39,000 employees.
   

• Sept 05 - Delta Airlines files bankruptcy, has approx. 69,000 employees.
   

Did I mention the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents who became newly unemployed last month???... maybe they'll be joined by tens-of-thousands of Floridians on the unemployment line after this coming weekend????.