This article speaks for itself.
Bill for taxpayers swells by trillionsDeficit far bigger than government estimate
By Dennis CauchonUSA TODAY
The federal government’s long-term financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion last year, a reflection of the mushrooming cost of Medicare and Social Security benefits as more baby boomers reach retirement.
That’s double the red ink of a year earlier.
Taxpayers [...]

Caroline Baum was asking in her column today: “How can a 2 percent funds rate be appropriately calibrated to promote moderating inflation when inflation is currently rising at almost 4 percent?” The answer: it can’t. The Fed is all about easy money.
Look, we have a huge debt problem in this country. Have [...]

I am on record for expecting a serious downturn after the Tech Bubble crashed in 2001. We muddled through for a few years, but ultimately most of the damage was done and gone by 2004. The Tech Bubble was a bubble of asset prices that had little influence on the underlying global financial [...]

Since the beginning of the bull market in 1982, the U.S. has become a society hooked on debt. Total debt (including financial services companies) has nearly doubled as a percentage of GDP in those 25-odd years (from 133% of GDP at $4 trillion of debt in 1981 on GDP of $3 trillion to 221% [...]

The Lex column in Yesterday’s FT highlights what many market players are thinking about the company’s £4 billion ($8 billion) rights issue: the economic outlook in the UK is worse than feared.
“The main potential explanation for the apparent excess capital is that the board’s outlook for the real economy is worse than stated. Retail bankers’ [...]

RBS, the second largest British bank behind HSBC, has finally come clean on the credit crisis. The price? An enormous $24 billion in new capital needed. This is a huge story because this does not even begin to discount the credit problems British banks are likely to suffer when the UK market starts [...]

Since the housing bubble created a global credit crunch in June 2007 after Bear Stearns announced the collapse of two funds it ran (its High-Grade Structured Credit Fund and its High Grade Structured Credit Enhanced Leveraged Fund), there have been a massive number of announced write-offs and bank failures. As a result, a number [...]

UPDATE 16 Mar 2009: In light of the recent revelations at AIG (see posts here and here), I am re-posting this early post from last March. It is looking a lot more like this is the correct interpretation of events.

The credit bubble has claimed its first major finance company: Bear Stearns. The venerable firm, which traded as high as $160 in 2007 and was trading above $60 just last week, was bought for a mere $2 per share by rival JP Morgan Chase and Co.
From my point of view, this is the first [...]