Here we are one year after Lehman Brothers collapsed and Wall St. started to crumble. One year after Wall Street greed pushed our entire financial system to the brink. One year after hard-working Americans watched helplessly as their nest eggs plunged in value.

So, we've learned our lessons, and Wall St. is a saner, safer place, right?

HA!

Looking at the story lines on cable TV, the broker pitches, the newspaper stories, it's clear we haven't learned a darned thing...

"Is the recession over?"

"Housing market sees light at the end of the tunnel!"

"Commodities...the BEST place to invest NOW."

These are all the same lines Wall Street and the so-called experts on TV fed us before the financial meltdown decimated trillions of our investment dollars. (And when did every journalist become a market expert?!)

Greed was good as companies reaped billions in profits from mortgages that never should have been made to non-creditworthy borrowers...faulty ratings from credit rating agencies...sellers of credit default swaps who thought that they'd never have to pay the insurance that they had written...Collateralized Mortgage Obligations (we've been calling them Collateralized MORON Obligations for year)...it was all making Wall St. fat cats even richer!

And who paid for the fall-out from all this uncontrolled greed?

You guessed it...you and me! I didn't see any executives turning in their swanky vacation homes or yachts did you?

Wall Street and the empty suits in Washington, in their foggy delusion, want us to believe that the worst is over so they can take us to the woodshed again and clean out what few bucks we have left.

We will NOT see a speedy recovery. And no matter what the official numbers how, the recession won't feel like it's over for months after the bean counters say it is. Why, you ask?

• There is still way too much confusion left in the financial markets as these brain surgeons try to unravel the thousands of complex derivative transactions that got them and US in this mess in the first place.
• With Washington printing money by the truckload financing dozens of programs and projects benefitting too few Americans...inflation is a certainty!
• Many of the positive corporate earnings reports are a result of cost cutting (spelled lost J-O-B-S) NOT due to increased consumer confidence and inspired upper management.
• The United States is fast losing its standing as THE most stable place in the world to invest. Who owns America because of their massive purchases of Treasury securities? Japan and China.
• The stimulus plan isn't working fast enough or as planned. Don't ask the millions of Americans out of work...many of whose jobs have been either eliminated forever or sent overseas never to return how well they have been "stimulated."

America is resilient. We have been through bad times before...and we will recover.

But, don't let anyone fool you...like it or not - it will NOT be a speedy recovery.  Use our 9 step recession survival plan to thrive and survive the rough financial road still ahead. 

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