And they all fall Down.

Japanese exports fell by 45.7% in January from a year ago - the steepest decline since 1957 - as exports to three of Japan's biggest overseas markets fell by record levels. Exports to the United States fell by 52.9%, exports to Europe declined by 47.4%, and exports to Asia dropped by 46.7%, Japan's Ministry of Finance reported.

Ambac Financial Group Inc. (ABK) posted a $2.34 billion, or $8.14 a share,
fourth-quarter loss. General Motors Corp., surviving on $13.4 billion in U.S. aid, reported a $9.6 billion fourth- quarter loss.

The fundamental position of Gregor.us Monthly is that the price of Oil will steadily gain influence over all areas of investment from this point forward and that professionals will need to incorporate this view more habitually into their strategy.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has posted the largest annual loss in British corporate history: $34.4 billion for 2008.

The economic contraction has only curbed demand for crude oil by 300,000 barrels/day in 2008 during one of the worst global recessions in decades.

Peter Schif says "The government should enforce the integrity of free markets, not manipulate them", completely ignoring the fact that the free-for-all market HAS no integrity. It's quite literally a conspiracy of the haves against the have-nots. They pretend openness while myriad shenanigans and tom-foolery goes on behind the scenes to manipulate prices, as well as the books, elevate value, and lie brazenly to the public. Just watch a car ad, like an adult for a change; actually looking to get data for the investment of time it demands. You'll get none. You'll get a car zipping along a mountain road, or a thunderous tank-like vehicle plowing through a rocky stream, and allow yourself to be manipulated by adolescent angst, even in your fifties.

Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread
manner than expected, raising sea levels and fueling climate change, and the melting of Greenland's ice cover is accelerating. The land-based ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic hold the bulk of the world's freshwater reserves and can generate sea level changes of global scale as they melt.

Really makes you hope we can get this carbon-spewing war-machine economy back on track, eh? Let's see? Deal with climate change or starve? hmmmmm. Meanwhile the Pakistan Taliban are mysteriously well-armed, even as more than a third of the military's arms in Afghanistan have inexplicably disappeared.

About 4,000 years ago our ancestors cut down the forests of the Fertile Crescent and turned the whole region into a desert. It worked so well that Indonesia is trying to repeat the feat with the world's third largest rain forest before the Brazilians can with the Amazon. Buy yo fuel now.

S&P: Ukraine's long-term foreign currency rating was lowered to ‘CCC+’, seven levels below investment grade, making Ukraine’s rating the lowest in Europe and on a par with Pakistan.

Gary Gensler, the nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and
former Goldman Sachs partner, is the latest from the firm of criminals to join
government to keep the inside traders at GS informed of pending government actions:
keep those shredders ready.

U.S. driving and fuel usage are up, despite the recession.

I want don’t want to believe that things are going to turn out the way they probably will… but policy makers and forecasters who see a recovery next year are probably lying to boost public confidence ... that's their job. But of course this isn't a recession. This is something really quite different in character from anything we've experienced in the postwar era. So many of the benefits of the boom went to the elites. If you have a lost decade plus redistribution, it may not be that dramatic a change for many, many people. People just have to get over the fact that their wealth wasn't worth what they thought it was in 2006. Whether it's their stock
market portfolio or their housing, (or their children's future). If we simply go back to where we were, in 2005, that's surely not the worst thing that could happen to us.”

That's Niall Ferguson, that. Remember those words, you'll think of them with a cynical sneer some day.