WSJ | The European Union is in need of a new economic strategy– but the reason has as much to do with the fact that its previous one is nearing its expiry date as any desperate need to deal with the current crisis.

Reuters | Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust PLA deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.

Sydney Morning Herald | Bankers rubbed shoulders with celebrated economic figures.

Bloomberg | Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the U.S. is in no danger of losing its Aaa debt rating even though the Obama administration has predicted a $1.6 trillion budget deficit in 2010.

Times Montgomery | Political and public pressure is building to bring bingo bling to Alabama’s financially ailing school and general government revenue.

My Budget 360 | 1 out of 10 Americans on food stamps and how the Fed slowly devalued the dollars in your wallet.

You Tube | Indianapolis Colts’ DT Daniel Muir instinctively thinks Fed chairman Ben Bernanke to be a crook.

Financial Times | he triple A sovereign credit rating of the US will come under pressure unless economic growth is more robust than expected or tougher actions are taken to tackle the country’s budget deficit.

Dow Jones | The Labor Department’s annual benchmark revision to the survey that produces the monthly payroll report painted a bleaker 2009 picture.

CNN Money | Don’t look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system.

Business Week | Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. was stripped of its last AAA credit rating by Standard & Poor’s after the billionaire investor agreed to buy railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

Silverbearcafe | It’s one of those numbers that’s so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while… Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt.

CNN Money | NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo unveiled a major legal action against senior Bank of America executives over its controversial purchase of Merrill Lynch, including bringing civil charges against its former CEO Ken Lewis.

Bloomberg | The U.S. may lose 824,000 jobs when the government releases its annual revision to employment.

Washington Times | State legislatures and governors are trying to raise money without raising taxes — at least not technically.

Reuters | Obama said China and Asia would be a huge market for U.S. exports going forward but it would be important to address currency rates to ensure American goods were not facing a disadvantage.

Global Research | If the economy deteriorates in the L-shaped “hockey-stick” rut that many economists forecast, what political price will President Obama and the Democrats pay for having returned the financial keys to the Bush Republican appointees who gave away the store in the first place?

Bloomberg | Paul Volcker is enjoying increased influence with the Federal Reserve as well as the Obama administration, central bank records show.

Bloomberg | “The headline number will look large and big, but actually when you dissect it, it’s very dismal and poor,” Roubini said.

Dr. Peter T Treadway | Our monetary system — including its domestic and international components — is broken.

Zero Hedge | San Jose State economics professor Jeffrey Rogers Hummel tells all his students that the easiest way to understand the Federal Reserve is to think of it as a giant, legalized counterfeiter.

AFP | Switzerland’s justice minister warned in an interview on Sunday that top bank UBS could collapse if sensitive talks with the United States over a high-profile tax fraud investigation fall through.

FT | Hank Paulson feared there would be a run on the dollar during the early phase of the financial crisis when global concerns were focused on the US, the former Treasury secretary has told the Financial Times.

Wall Street Journal | It is a phrase that should resonate through much of the industrial world, where high and long-standing unemployment is increasingly becoming a huge domestic political issue.

Zero Hedge | A tidal wave of fiat paper currencies is now flooding the world financial system at an increasingly alarming rate.

Business Insider | Russia may have tried to conspire with China in a bid to collapse the U.S. financial system, according to Paulson.

My Budget 360 | You wouldn’t think that there is a definite war raging against the middle class if you simply follow the mainstream media.

Russia Today | New Mexico congressional candidate Adam Kokesh says that without the bailout, some firms would failed, but the potential consequences of such a move have been blown out of proportion.

Reuters | Teenagers have found it significantly harder to get a job since the recession began in late 2007, with black youths and young people from low-income families faring the worst.

Reuters | Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, said on Monday the U.S. economy could take years to recover from recession and predicted taxes will have to rise to bring the federal budget into balance.

George Washington | National security has been discussed for years as a basis of keeping normal accounting and securities-related disclosures secret.

Infowars.com | Mort Zuckerman of U.S. News & World Report explains why we’re still in the “Great Recession.”

Campaign for Liberty | When Congress was debating President Obama’s proposed “stimulus” last year, two of the watchwords for the near-trillion-dollar boondoggle were “jobs” and “shovel-ready.”

Reuters | U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Fed’s bid to keep secret many of the details of the AIG bailout like a request to protect matters of national security

CNN Money| Existing home sales fell in December, the month after a federal tax credit was slated to expire, according to a real estate industry report issued Monday.

Bloomberg | Said he expects Obama to use the Jan. 27 nationally televised address before Congress to embrace creation of a commission that would suggest spending cuts and tax increases.

Raw Story | On the same day that President Barack Obama announced an ambitious plan to reform the US financial system, bankers at the largest Wall Street institutions indicated that they are already finding ways around the proposed changes.

Zero Hedge | We apologize in advance for the NY Magazine-style headline, but this is a report that has to be read by all Senators who are preparing to reconfirm Bernanke for a second term.

The Economic Collapse | Even though the U.S. financial system nearly experienced a total meltdown in late 2008, the truth is that most Americans simply have no idea what is happening to the U.S. economy.

Bloomberg | More than half the respondents in a quarterly poll of investors and analysts said that increased congressional oversight would open the U.S. central bank to political influence and hurt the Fed’s ability to conduct monetary policy.

Zero Hedge | America spoke in Massachusetts, and will speak again very soon if you do not send the appropriate signal that you have heard its anger — Do Not Reconfirm Bernanke.

Wall Street Journal | The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week.

Wall Street Journal | Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Thursday reported blowout fourth-quarter earnings, driven in part because it restrained compensation amid a public outcry about excessive pay.

CNBC | Economic expert Jim Rogers gives his outlook for commodities as the paper-based economy continues to tank.

Bloomberg | Fed Chairman Bernanke sought to defuse allegations that the central bank tried to conceal details about the $182.3 billion bailout of AIG, calling for a review of Fed actions by congressional auditors.

Financial Armageddon | Come summer 2010, the most severe gaps will be closed via budget cuts or tax increases unless the Federal Government can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

CNN Money | Almost 3 million homeowners received at least one foreclosure filing during 2009, setting a new record for the number of people falling behind on their mortgage payments.

Lew Rockwell | The government wants Americans to believe the greatest economic collapse in history was the result of ineptness and mistakes yet still have confidence in their financial institutions.

You Tube | The biggest bailout in history was a FRAUD, perpetrated by the Government. Keep Geithner as long as you can Obama. This might be a path for the impeachment of the puppet-president.

Money & Markets | Washington has so thoroughly botched its supervision of the banking industry that 200 banks are likely to fail this year — already costing the FDIC ten times more than the great S&L and banking crisis of the 1980s did.