The $700 billion that was arm-twisted from Congress by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in October was evidently just the camel’s nose under the tent. According to a November 24 Bloomberg report, the Paulson/Bernanke team is now prepared to pay $7.76 trillion to rescue the financial system.[1] Prepared to pay how? Congress has not raised its debt ceiling to anywhere near that level; but the approval of Congress, which originally voted down the controversial $700 billion bailout, is apparently no longer necessary.

Wayne County runs ads in paper showing foreclosures in Detroit and other Detroit suburbs inside the county. This is before the Big Three go under.

The global automotive industry faced a fresh wave of bad news Monday, as data showed drops in Swedish, Japanese and South Korean November car sales, with figures for France, Spain and Italy due out later in the day. Automakers are cutting production as well as seeking help from governments to survive as they battle against the effects of the financial crisis and worsening economic climate on consumer confidence.

The company's decision followed actions by the LA Auto Show to muzzle AFS Trinity from highlighting the 150 miles per gallon fuel economy of its XH150 prototype vehicles. The suppression by the automakers of information about technologies such as this raises serious questions about the judgment, vision, intentions and capabilities of the leadership of these companies, said Edward W. Furia, Chairman and CEO of AFS Trinity.

The problem is that since 1944 the United States had promised to act responsibly and hold the value of the dollar constant, controlling the money supply, and thus preventing inflation and runaway booms like the gold standard did, so that all the other countries could take the easy way out and merely use the dollar as their "gold" reserves against which they could value their own currencies, instead of hassling with all that metal back and forth.

Across America's upper strata, rich folk like Hirtenstein are experiencing an unfamiliar emotion: luxury shame. The late Coco Chanel, doyenne of 20th century fashion, long ago said that luxury is "the opposite of vulgarity," not of poverty. But in these recessionary times, it seems vulgar to flaunt one's luxurious lifestyle.

Early results from the Black Friday weekend, which kicks off holiday sales one day after Thanksgiving, bolstered forecasts by some analysts that total holiday sales could contract for the first time since that data started being collected in the early 1990s.

ShopperTrak, which measures customer traffic, said Saturday that Black Friday sales rose 3 percent to $10.6 billion. That was slower than an 8.3 percent rise in 2007.

"The initial response by many people may be positive," said Telsey Advisory Group analyst Joseph Feldman of the increase.

Hassan, whose pretzel cart has sat outside the Disney store on New York’s Fifth Avenue for almost 10 years, had never seen a Black Friday like it.

“Last year, I sold almost 1,000 breads. This year it’s only 100 or 150,” he said.

The U.S. government will not reach its goal of balancing the federal budget by 2012 because of the response to the global financial crisis, the White House said on Wednesday.

Just before the United States entered that war, our politicians bailed out the Wall Street bankers, reimbursing them for huge, unsecured loans to European governments. Those governments had spent the money for U.S.-made war materials. U.S. taxpayers got their worthless IOUs.

Discussion about the swindle was suppressed by professionally organized pro-war demonstrations, propaganda hoopla about "freedom" and "democracy," and "sedition" laws to imprison anyone who told the truth.

Few prominent economists will say it, but to me it looks and feels like we are in another Great Depression or a reasonable facsimile.

The current meltdown is dubbed a "financial crisis." But a rose by any other name would still inflict the same hardship and suffering on most people and businesses.

Clearly, the lessons have not been learned from the Herbert Hoover era. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, says the current banking crisis is "functionally similar to that of the Great Depression."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday called for developing an alternative economy in the face of the “total failure” of socialism and capitalism.

Many organizations, such as the Salvation Army and Samost Jewish Family and Children Services, have experienced 15 to 30 percent increases in requests for assistance while donations tend to lag.

His commitment to a famed American industry, part business and part romance, never waned. He took over his family’s two dealerships, building a small fortune. In turn, he showered generosity on local churches, school athletic teams, charity golf tournaments and a group that helps women find jobs out of prison.

But suddenly, all of Mr. Thomas’s success appears to be melting away.

Days go by without a sale. His debts are mounting. His friends offer him cash to get by. “I’m trying to survive as a car dealer,” said Mr. Thomas, now 59, “and I don’t know if I can.”

The police officers who set up double metal barricades yesterday along the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan need not have bothered.

The Stupids are back.

You remember that fictional family who appear in series of books portrayed as incompetent to the point of confusing the most simple concepts and tasks The books were themselves denounced as irresponsible and inspired films which were dismissed as stupid plus.

General Motors, under fire for flying its chief executive to Washington for hearings on an auto bailout on its corporate jet, has asked the FAA to block the public from being able to track its plane.

“We availed ourselves of the option as others do to have the aircraft removed,” a GM spokesman told Bloomberg News.

He goes on to explain that the massive money creation efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks will end with one of two things: A resurgence of inflation, or a fall into “depression, civil disorder and possibly wars

The Federal Reserve boosted its lending to commercial banks and investment firms over the past week, indicating that a severe credit crisis was still squeezing the financial system.

The U.K. government has extracted a pledge from credit-card issuers to give struggling borrowers an extra 60 days to pay, in its latest effort to ease the impact of the financial crisis on the economy.

The move, which comes days after the government announced a £20 billion ($30.8 billion) economic stimulus package, is aimed at giving borrowers extra breathing room to restructure their debts, the government said.

The Paris Club of creditor nations has published for the first time the list of its debt claims on individual countries, the group said on Wednesday.

As the OPEC cartel meets in Cairo on Saturday, exporters are being pummeled by a triple whammy of lower prices, falling demand and declining revenue. The group, whose members account for more than 40 percent of global oil exports, is desperately seeking ways to stop the drop in prices, which have fallen from their summer peaks at a record pace.

Iran’s OPEC envoy noted that production by the group decreased during September and November, according to statistics, but highlighted that the cut is not enough to bring calm to the oil market, as some OPEC countries are not respecting their agreed quota.

Poverty in the United States is spreading from rural and inner-city areas to the suburbs, according to a study, a situation that can worsen as the economy confronts what may be a protracted recession.

The study by the Federal Reserve's Community Affairs department and the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program found that poverty levels in the world's richest nation were on the rise.

Even as the holiday shopping season begins in full swing, the same events poisoning the housing market are now at work on commercial properties, and the bad news is trickling in. Malls from Michigan to Georgia are entering foreclosure.

Hotels in Tucson, Ariz., and Hilton Head, S.C., also are about to default on their mortgages.

With the launch of the Free Lakota Bank, The Free & Independent Nation of Lakota has launched a frontal assault on Wall Street, The Fed, and International Bankers.

Native Americans are historically known for their strong spirit, patience, and stealth, not to mention their very advanced war making strategies. The launch of this banking concept seems to display all of these characteristics in spades.

The government's financial bailout will be the most expensive single expenditure in American history, potentially costing around $7.5 trillion -- or half the value of all the goods and services produced in the United States last year.

The bailouts keep coming, and they seem to be getting worse for taxpayers.

The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday.

Balzac’s maxim that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime” may yet prove a fitting epitaph for American capitalism. A recent survey by the Wall Street Journal reveals that CEOs at major US financial and real estate firms converted tens of millions of dollars of overvalued stock into cash prior to the eruption of the current financial crisis, even as many of their corporations approached the precipice.

Student advocacy groups are urging the Treasury Department to prevent a new $200 billion consumer-lending program from benefiting private student lenders, which they say are largely unregulated and prey on students with risky, high-interest loans.

To loot and pillage from all the people you need the cooperation of the overlord. The overlord in the USA is? Government is the overlord..

How do you get the cooperation of the overlord? You get the full cooperation of the overlord by including him in with the Lion's share of the take!

People blame this crisis on cheap money and greedy bankers. They certainly cannot be exempted. But I take a more fatalist point of view. There has to be a reason for humans to die off in their 70s and 80s. I believe it is so that the memory of a generation's mistakes is erased, allowing future ages to repeat the folly of greed and fear.

The Swiss bank UBS AG has uncovered cases of tax fraud by some of its U.S. clients, Chairman Peter Kurer said Thursday.

UBS examined its files as a result of investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and others into cross-border services the bank provides to American clients, Kurer told shareholders.

Chesapeake Energy Corp., the nation's largest producer of natural gas, seeks to raise up to $1.8 billion through common stock sales in an effort to fund its drilling and exploration activities and mitigate the impact of lower natural gas prices on cash flow.

If Congress goes ahead with an auto industry bailout, American taxpayers may have to pay for thousands of laid off auto workers to literally do nothing all year.

Some of the kids crawling onto Santa Joe's lap this year have more than stuffed animals and video games on their most-wanted lists. Several times already this season, Joe Jackson has been asked to get Daddy a job or Mommy money to buy the house back.

"You see things behind the beard that nobody else will ever see or hear. I've had children just literally tear my heart out," said Jackson, who is pulling on his red suit for a 19th season of playing Santa at private parties and festivals in the northern part of the state.

The full scope of the U.S. housing meltdown isn't clear and already there are ominous signs of a new crisis — one that could turn out the lights on malls, hotels and storefronts across the country.

Even as the holiday shopping season begins in full swing, the same events poisoning the housing market are now at work on commercial properties, and the bad news is trickling in. Malls from Michigan to Georgia are entering foreclosure.

Thanks to rising unemployment and food prices, the Washington Post tells us, Americans on food stamps are set to pass 30 million this month for the first time ever, passing the historic high set in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Not exactly something for those folks to celebrate.

According to psychologists, the government's many do- overs this year in propping up the banking industry have left professional investors resembling trauma victims who are wary of extending trust.

It has never been more clear how much corporations depend on We, the People for their very existence. Corporations are given the right to exist through a public charter. For public corporations, shareholders are bestowed with limited liability, and they benefit from a public system of securities regulation that gives investors confidence to invest. In the best of times, corporations benefit both from public goods (public roads and infrastructure, public investment in R&D) and targeted benefits (tax subsidies, loan guarantees, and much more).

Amidst the spreading global financial crisis, a special debt audit commission released a report charging that much of Ecuador's foreign debt was illegitimate or illegal. The commission recommended that Ecuador default on $3.9 billion in foreign commercial debts--Global Bonds 2012, 2015 and 2030--the result of debts restructured in 2000 after the country's 1999 default.