One year removed from a catastrophic, global, economic meltdown, and 26 months removed from the start of the credit crisis, our political establishment is either unwilling or unable to reform the system and punish the perpetrators of this debacle. The situation is so far beyond the pale that it makes one wonder if another catastrophe is even avoidable.

There are those that honestly think you can make a sustainable economy based on people buying things they don't need with money they don't have. Then there are those who just want to sucker in the sheeple so they can fleece them one more time.

Yesterday, the Dow had its best day since the beginning of April... the sun is shining, the birds are chirping... and all seems right with the world - at least on the surface. James Howard Kunstler is here to clean off those rose-colored glasses, and give a dose of reality.

The public didn't pay much attention to this comment by Congressman Mark Kirk last week, but they should have: "It would appear, quietly and with deference and politeness, that China has canceled America's credit card."

We have landed on a strange and wonderful watery planet - the third planet in orbit around the sun, a minor star in the Milky Way galaxy. Well, they say it is a watery planet. Where we are, it is icy. But the locals say it warms up and the ice melts. We’re suspicious; maybe it’s just hype to attract tourists.

"Asked what it was like to work on Wall Street, our contact at Goldman had a one-word reply: 'Armageddon.' Another contact at CitiGroup said the bank had become a 'zombie' - dead, but still alive."

Liquefied Natural Gas. It is most commonly known as LNG. It has the potential to be one of Australia's major exports in the next twenty years.

Your investment state of mind has a lot to do with the security of your employment and your income. When people start to worry about having a job, they cut expenses. One of the first places that cut backs show up is retail spending.

If you want a real-world example of how inflation in consumer prices follows an increase in the money supply AND how an increase in anti-social, war-like behavior follows increases in prices, then a report from Bloomberg.com is just what you are looking for.

Global financial markets are acting as though the world is about to implode. Over the past four months, the investment community has dumped all assets; regardless of their underlying economic fundamentals. We have seen unbelievable wealth destruction on a global scale and trillions of dollars have evaporated and returned to monetary heaven.

You can't blame the king of Persia for printing up money no one could trust. His neighbors in China were doing the same, after all, and with the same inevitable consequences, too...

Princeton professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for economics.

Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves are so low that the country can only afford one month of imports and faces possible bankruptcy.

Dow Loses 777 Points After Vote

All discussion about the proposed taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street banks is centered around the idea of, "If we don't bail them out, they will fail.
It seems no one is asking a much more important question of, "Will this bailout do any good?" Or to take this one step further, "Will this bailout do more harm than good?"

It's the usual question that someone asks after getting hit over the head and mugged, or if they were in the immediate vicinity of an explosion.

For the American taxpayer, both of those things happened during these past two weeks.

In what amounts to an egregious manipulation of the free market, UK regulators bar short-selling on financial stocks.

Wall Street tumbled again Wednesday, with anxieties about the financial system still running high even after the government bailed out the insurer American International Group Inc. "People are scared to death," said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist for PNC Wealth Management

Russian markets stopped trading for a second day after emergency funding measures by the government failed to halt the biggest stock rout

In an extraordinary turn, the Federal Reserve was close to a deal Tuesday night to take a nearly 80 percent stake in the troubled giant insurance company, the American International Group, in exchange for an $85 billion loan, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target for the federal funds rate at 2 percent.

Top US investment bank Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy protection, sending shockwaves through financial markets.

Global shares have rallied after the US government said it was taking over troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

The unemployment rate soared in August and employers slashed jobs, as a weakening in the labor market accelerated. The numbers suggest there is little good news ahead for American workers, who face deepening stress from several sides.

As a reserve currency, all other currencies are derivatives of the dollar (in the same way that all currencies were derivatives of gold and silver a century ago). Therefore when America's debt burden becomes too onerous it effects everyone else. The simple fact of the matter is that our national debt can never, and will never, be paid back.

Oil fell as much as $5 a barrel to a six-week low on Tuesday as a tropical storm moving over the Gulf of Mexico was expected to miss most major oil and gas installations.

A news article came out yesterday that received almost no attention. Yet its significance cannot be overstated to those still hoping for a large drop in energy prices.

"...Just like the Bank of England, the US Fed seems to have Britney-sized 'issues' with its core stock-in-trade – money itself..."

There are lots of reasons why a small company share can go up in price quickly. Usually it's an innovative new product, a new market, or, in some cases, a sudden change in the market value of a good, product, or service.

"Does the US matter any more?" The question comes to us from the head of research at Societe Generale. Looking at the data from the International Energy Agency in Paris, reported in this space yesterday, he noticed that now China, Russia, India and the Mideast use more oil than the USA.