rdan The Institute for Southern Studies reminds us that coal is not simply about smokestacks:

rdan James Surowiecki at the New Yorker has a few tidbits for a slow news day…or if the news is not slow, the reporting is. Notice AB at the top of the blog roll for fun.

rdan If you like the idea of earning high income—8%-12% annually—plus 15%, or higher, capital gains on top of that… …this new multimedia report, The 25% Cash Machine, will show you, step-by-step, how to get started today. It will take you from the basics of strategic high-income investing right through some of the very best […]

rdan Yves Smith said it fast and clear in her response to this part of a series in the NYT explaining the financial woes of the US. Two famous men, Kenneth Rogoff and Ben Bernanke, are given star billing. Yves post is worth reading. Here are some links to Angry Bear posts on the trade […]

rdan The The WSJ gives us this quote: To be sure, there was a glimmer of positive economic news this week as well, as the Labor Department released figures showing inflation-adjusted consumer spending inched up slightly in November as gas prices fell steeply. The personal savings rate also climbed in November. Socking away more in […]

by reader Noni Mausa Who has “bad credit” when a million Americans file for bankruptcy? With the air hissing out of the Bush balloon, the ½ to 1 million a year personal bankruptcies for the past decade will certainly not slow down. And the kinds of causes aren’t the sort people will easily be able […]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all from the Bears!

by cactus (lifted from comments) Obama is already out there, doing some pre-presidenting so to speak. We’ve already had an opportunity to glimpse what he’s about. So far, he’s been about supporting giving reams of money to the Wall Street Welfare Queen class. I had a post noting that it couldn’t and wouldn’t work as […]

by cactus Excerpts From Two Stories About Pemex Story 1, Bloomberg, this week. Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, said crude oil output fell 6.5 percent in November from the year-earlier period as production at its Cantarell field declined at a faster-than-expected rate. Production dropped to 2.711 million barrels a day, from 2.901 million barrels […]

by cactus Hubbard’s New Nonsense The only thing that comes to mind after reading this from James Kwak (hat tip: Mark Thoma is WTF: After seeing dozens of mortgage proposals emerge over the past several months, there are news stories that Larry Summers and the Obama economic team are converging on an unlikely candidate: the […]