"May you live in interesting times"

The title of this post quotes a (supposedly) old Chinese saying. With regards to what's going on in world financial markets these are certainly interesting times indeed.

Here's a sampling of various articles I've come across:

The first one is from Time, titled "How Financial Madness Overtook Wall Street". It takes six web pages but it's not a long read and well worth it.

Also from Time: "How We Became the United States of France"

Some eye-opening statements are being made, such as "the total cost to the US taxpayer is now close to $US2 trillion, and Congress is expected to pass legislation to increase the Federal debt limit to $US11.6 trillion. I believe current events will almost certainly signal the end of the global leadership for the US economy and the US dollar as the world's "reserve" currency. This is an historic event." From a lengthy but good article from Smart Company, "Australia's online magazine for entrepreneurs"

"Does anyone think it’s just a little weird to be stampeded into a $700 billion solution to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by the very people who brought us the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?" From "A Second Opinion?" by the New York Times.

"The trillion-dollar question is where is the U.S. government going to get the funds to bail out the financial system? The Bush administration’s tax cuts and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned a $200 billion budget surplus into a $400 billion deficit, not counting the costs to rescue the financial system." From "Shock and Awe on Wall Street - Worst Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression" by Fight Back News.

And a quote from an unattributed source:

"The United States has touted free markets as the holy grail, and even liberal democracies have been excoriated by Washington for not wringing out their last vestiges of socialism. Today, however, much of the US economy is about to be run by the central government, which is supposed to be where socialism went wrong."

Interesting times indeed...