Now Americans are getting their supersized desserts. Not because they haven't been nice. But because they haven't been good.

Consumers are getting shellacked all over the world, and so are investors.

In the vaults of various central banks around the world lies $4.8 trillion worth of foreign currency reserves -- the fruit of selling oil and widgets, mainly to U.S. consumers.

Unemployment is rising. And now, carpenters, plumbers and even granite countertop installers are getting jobs with the banks. They're finding work maintaining foreclosed houses.

The combination of '30s-style asset deflation and '70s-style consumer price inflation has spooked investors everywhere.

More bad news from the oil markets is popping the economic bubble.

People who believe that history repeats itself are asking themselves: Is this a rerun of the '30s…or a replay of the '70s.

Jim Cramer says he’s never seen anything like it.  Not the crash of Drexel Burnham Lambert in the ’80s, not the Asian currency crisis, not the LongTerm Capital Management blowup, and not the dotcom bust.  Now, he says, the mood of gloom on Wall Street just gets worse and worse -- with no sign of let up.

The Fed is losing control of inflation, and a catastrophic event could be around the corner.

China's economy continues floating higher and higher. But all these extra dollars are pushing up wages and prices as well as the economy.