The average middle class household is getting squeezed by an income that is not keeping up with the cost of living. Unfortunately, a major portion of the cost of living has become debt service. Most car buyers assume an almost insane amount of debt to buy a new car. Credit card debt is being used to make ends meet. Low-to-no down payment mortgages have funded most of the homes sold over the last few years. The problem, however, is that the financial system enables this behavior. One has to wonder if this was not intentional…

The quote above is from a recent Peter Schiff podcast. He goes on to say the it's unclear how quickly the financial system will unravel but "it is close" to happening. I wanted to use that quote because one of the goals of the Short Seller's Journal is to present hard evidence that brings to your attention the "negative underlying factors" which contradict the "official" narrative about the economy and financial system.

A subscriber of mine sent an article to me in which the Wall Street economist, Joe LaVorgna, was forecasting today's GDP report to surprise everyone by coming in at 5%. I literally laughed out loud. LaVorgna is a hack who has spent his career on Wall Street preaching fairytales about the economy as a means of assisting the snakeoil salesmen at his bank in their efforts to stuff as much high-commission junk into investor accounts as possible. People like LaVorgna would sell their mother for a small commission. I know this because everyone who was above me in the food-chain in the securities division of Bankers Trust in the 1990's was like that.