Bloomberg's chart of the day (below), and the accompanying article is somewhat troubling. For what seems like the first time in mainstream media, someone acknowledges the truth: "The U.K. Government may lose its top AAA credit rating after taking a 70% stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, credit-default swaps show."

The WSJ reports ($$$ link) that Mexican billionaire (or is that millionaire now, we need to double check) Carlos Slim Helu may bail out the New York Times.

CEO of Russia in Perpetuity, Vladimir Putin, was faced Monday with the tough truth of plummeting oil prices. Oil, of course, has been the lifeblood of Russia's renaissance in recent years.

Buy: Barrels of Oil (we do not have a position in this "security" so we hope the SEC does not bust our front door in an hour for position peddling)

As the clock ticks on labor and creditor negotiations for the Detroit 3 (it seems like only yesterday that people called them the Big 3) ahead of the March 31 deadline for the thumbs up/down decision, it might be prudent to look at this. All over the world millions of brand new unsold cars are piling up in vacant lots.

REITs are in trouble. Let me paraphrase that - REITs are in very big trouble. These companies whose very existence presumes significant equity value in their underlying investments are feeling a lot of pain these days with commercial mortgages on the verge of a default tsunami.

It has been 4 days since we demonstrated Zimbabwe's recently issued $50 billion note...