It turned out that 95 percent of the new jobs were census takers -- people paid by the government to count the people who pay the government.

Is the market really headed down or not?  Is it a real bear market that will continue for years?

The problem in the world economy is debt. There’s too much of it. Investors who aren’t delusional know that too much debt spells trouble.

Unless there's a surprise boom in real estate, households will have to get back on the wagon. They need to de-leverage. And they know it.

Who's gonna win this match? Mr. Market? Or the fixers?

As a share of personal income, never before has the private sector contributed so little. Thank god for the government. Without those checks from the feds, we’d all be broke.

There's something else going on -- something much more important and much harder to deal with than an ordinary recession. The feds have thrown everything into the battle to stop this downturn. No matter how you look at it, the ammunition spent in this fight has been spectacular.

Speculators are just doing their job.  They see that the real problem is debt.

How is it possible that people who just discovered capitalism 20 years ago could do a better job of it than Harvard grads motivated by million-dollar bonuses?

Little appreciated in the economic literature are the benefits of giving up and letting things collapse.