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...linkage between Asian growth and the American consumer bears special mention. The U.S. consumer is still the dominant consumer in the global economy. Although America accounts for only about 4.5% of the world's population, its consumers spent about $10 trillion in 2008. By contrast, although China and India collectively account for nearly 40% of the world's population, their combined consumption was only about $2.5 trillion in 2008. During the boom, China and the rest of Asia reaped enormous benefits from a mercantilist growth model that was tied increasingly to the voracious appetite of the American consumer. Unfortunately, Asia...
Even with all this aid, though, U.S. homeowners haven't been doing so well. The value of their real estate holdings has fallen by $4 trillion since 2006, according to the Federal Reserve. Millions of people have been booted from their dwellings over the past couple of years because they couldn't make their mortgage payments. Millions more foreclosures are on the way. The housing market, despite some hopeful signs over the summer, remains a terrible mess. (See high-end homes that won't sell...
...banking analyst who foresaw the crash, calls "hedge-fund disease," characterized by "megalomania, plus narcissism, plus solipsism" and the belief that "to think something is to make it happen." The meth-head loses his teeth and his mind; the madcap optimists of Wall Street lost something like $10 trillion worth of pension funds, life savings and retirement accounts. (Read "Why It's Time to Retire...
...Congressional Budget Office, which determines the cost of legislation, has told Pelosi that the Medicare-pegged rates would lead to $110 billion in savings over 10 years, while negotiated rates would save only about $25 billion. Pelosi, who is trying to whittle the House bill down from its $1.1 trillion price tag closer to the $900 billion that both Baucus and Obama are targeting, is hoping to use these CBO estimates to convince Democrats who oppose a public option to come on board...
Iran sits atop mammoth energy reserves -about 136 billion bbl. of oil and some 14 trillion cu m of natural gas. But because its refineries are too few and too old, the country refines just two-thirds of the gas it needs to keep its economy working and its 65 million people lit, driving and heated. The remaining third - about 120,000 bbl. a day - has to be imported...