It is time once again to throw caution and wisdom to the wind and make the annual forecast.

John Mauldin knows a few very good market timers, and they are sending out warnings.

"Kicking the can down the road" is a universally understood metaphor that has come to mean not dealing with the problem but putting a band-aid on it, knowing we will have to deal with something maybe even worse in the future.

Why is it that the Irish must take upon themselves the debts of their banks, which in reality are debts owed to German and French banks? Why should the Germans bail out the Greeks and the Spanish?

And the data out over the last few weeks tells us it is getting better. Does this take us out of the double-dip woods, even as the Fed is lowering its forecast? And what is a recession? Yes, we all know it's when the economy doesn't grow, but we are in a rather unique economic environment, this time. Maybe things are getting better, but is it enough to get us back on the road to full employment?

The CPI was out this week, and it showed a continued drop in inflation. There were those who immediately pointed out that this vindicated the Fed's move to QE2. We have to get ahead of this deflation thing, don't we?

China's currency is rising ever so slowly against the dollar.  But is that hurting China?

It turns out the the jobs numbers were much worse than originally thought.

This week we turn our attention to the elections and their aftermath.

John Mauldin looks at the massive fraud involved in the sale of mortgage-backed securities.  It's scandalous, and almost too much to contemplate.