If the job is spending money, who you gonna call?  

The federal government. 

The rapidly growing trade in derivatives poses a 'mega-catastrophic risk' for the economy and most shares are still 'too expensive', legendary investor Warren Buffett has warned. 

Sarah Palin received a barrage of boos from the crowd when she dropped the puck at last night's Flyers opener.  And honestly, who didn't see that coming?   

The problem is that the markets no longer have any faith that the world financial system they helped create has any future.  

The model is bust. It is encouraging that both the Americans and Germans are now moving towards what they considered ideologically unthinkable a fortnight ago - they are preparing to follow the British lead, take big public stakes in banks and offer guarantees to the interbank market. 

The Federal Government says its move to guarantee all bank deposits for the next three years does not mean there is a problem with Australian banks. 

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Government will guarantee all deposits in banks, building societies, credit unions or Australian subsidiaries of foreign banks. 

The four most dangerous words for investors are: This time is different.

In 1999, technology companies with no earnings or sales were valued at billions of dollars. But this time was different, investors told themselves. The Internet could not be missed at any price. 

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said political leaders are discussing the idea of closing the world's financial markets while they ``rewrite the rules of international finance.''  

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin yesterday shrugged off the findings of a state inquiry into the 'Troopergate' affair, which concluded that she had used her position as governor to pursue a private feud with a State Trooper. 

Pentagon officials have prepared a new estimate for defense spending that is $450 billion more over the next five years than previously announced figures.  

A new opinion in the United States gives the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a 6 per cent lead over his Republican rival John McCain. 

The poll shows 49 per cent support Senator Obama compared with 43 per cent for Senator McCain. 

Derivatives traders were yesterday nervously picking their way through the wreckage of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in what was the biggest test to date of the unregulated $60 trillion (£35.4 trillion) credit default swaps market. 

Investors who had placed bets on Lehman's creditworthiness held an auction aimed at clarifying who owes what to whom after the investment bank went bust four weeks ago, and analysts believe that several hundreds of billions of dollars will change hands.

At any other time, what happened in the U.S. Justice Department last week would have been big news.

At any other time, when internal reports by Justice Department call for more investigation into a case of unethical, if not criminal, conduct on the part of lawmakers and the White House, the administration would have a lot of explaining to do. 

The G7 group of nations have formulated an "aggressive" plan to counter the global economic crisis, they said last night. 

Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, said the G7 finance ministers "finalised an aggressive action plan to address the turmoil in the global financial markets and the stresses in our financial institutions". 

Until 3 pm on Thursday, it seemed as if the stock market might escape another dark day.

Then the selling hit — and hit and hit again, mimicking trading on Tuesday and Wednesday. What had been a moderately down day ended in a rout, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down 679 points, or 7.3percent, leaving it below 9,000 for the first time in five years.

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it".

- George Carlin 

The U.S. is on the verge of a revolutionary paradigm shift as not only is the finance system faltering but the old energy economy of fossil fuels has become too expensive and dangerous due to primarily to its carbon emissions.