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.

Rome did melt into the Tiber. The place was invaded by barbarians...the population sank from over a million to under 100,000. And when the city was "rediscovered" by tourists with a sense of history in the 17th century...there were goats grazing amid the ruins of the ancient city.

According to the press, the world's prettiest face, Gisele Bundchen, wants to be paid in euros for U.S. modeling gigs, and in his new video, the rapper Jay-Z triumphantly holds euros - not dollars - in his upraised fist.

The only fun that will be had is when gold, silver and oil go to the freaking moon that you get so rich that can you Super-Size those fries at every meal! Whee!

In England, as in America, consumers are caught between the hammer of inflation... "Prices soar at the fastest rate for 17 years," says a Daily Express headline.

You can link the historic surge in gold prices starting mid-August 2007 to many apparently disparate things.

America's triple-A credit rating may be in danger, says Standard and Poor's.

It's bizzaro world in the Aussie market today. Financial shares got a boost from a merger bid. The Prime Minister moves down the track toward price controls to bring local petrol down during a global oil crunch. And the RBA says only "risky borrowers" are facing tighter credit conditions these days.

"...The infamous Dow/Gold Ratio just touched its long-run historic average. So which way next amid the Fed's inflationary melt-up...?"

Talk about the rich getting poorer! Just look what's happening to those million-dollar McMansions out in the deserts of the USA.

BHP Billiton may already be taking advantage of that massive 240% price increase in coking coal it scored last week. Turning coal into cash, that gives BHP anywhere from US$5.5 to US$7 billion in 2008 revenues it didn't have before.