The Debt Contretemps Everybody's Ignoring
Randall W. Forsyth, Barron's
China may be preparing to sell some of U.S. securities for financial or geopolitical motivations, or a combination of the two, according to two different accounts..Moreover, David Goldman, writing on the Inner Workings blog at the Asia Times internet site (www.atimes.com) wrote the Chinese government has ordered reserve managers to divest themselves of all U.S. securities that aren't backed by the implicit or explicit U.S. government, which would leave only Treasuries and certain U.S. agency securities. That would cover Chinese institutions' substantial holdings of U.S. corporate and asset-backed securities.

The Next Crisis: Prepare for Peak Oil
Patience Wheatcroft, Wall Street Journal
..the work of the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security shouldn't be disparagingly dismissed. Its arguments are well founded and lead it to the conclusion that, while the global downturn may have delayed it by a couple of years, peak oil-the point at which global production reaches its maximum-is no more than five years away. Governments and corporations need to use the intervening years to speed up the development of and move toward other energy sources and increased energy efficiency.

An EU Protectorate: How Brussels Is Trying to Prevent a Collapse of the Euro
Armin Mahler, Christian Reiermann, Wolfgang Reuter and Hans-Jürgen Schlamp, Der Spiegel
The problems facing Greece are just the beginning. The countries belonging to Europe's common currency zone are drifting further and further apart, and national bankruptcies are a distinct possibility. Brussels is faced with a number of choices, none of them good.

The Emperor Has No Clothes
Chris Martenson, chrismartenson.com
The idea that there's no room to cut government expenditures without seriously impacting the economy is pure bunk.  We could easily trim defense spending without impacting our economy in the slightest..if we diverted money being spent on military expenditures into, say, high speed trains, wind farms, natural gas pipelines and distribution stations, and an upgraded electrical smart grid (for example), we'd get far more immediate and lasting economic benefit (and improved national security too, I might point out) than we would out of so-called "defense spending."

We're Weimar
James Howard Kunstler, kunstler.com (blog)
The delusional craziness of the Tea Partyists exists in direct proportion to the wimpy deceit of the government, especially in matters of money and statistics reporting. Our political leaders are resorting to wholesale deceit because the truth of our situation -- comprehensive bankruptcy -- is too painful to dwell on and for the most part they are too chicken too state it.

Delusions of Finance: Where We are Headed
Gail the Actuary, The Oil Drum
If you stop to think about it, there a quite a few differences in the way the economy functions in a period of economic growth and in a period of economic decline. The assumption of continued economic growth by traditional economists (who don't consider resources and their limits) has been so strong that most have not even considered what the economy would look like in a period of long-term decline.