While the U.S. Federal Reserve’s plan to buy more than $1 trillion in debt has helped unfreeze the credit markets, it has also effectively capped U.S. Treasury yields and undermined the dollar.

651K jobs lost in Feb…  Dec. and Jan Job losses revised up…  Talking Norway, Canada, Australia… Brazil stealthlike for 3 months… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress this week was a beautiful performance. His language was exquisite, his delivery was superb, his rhetoric – at times – truly uplifting. 

In a speech before the London School of Economics a week ago, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke offered a perverse economic theory in his quest to gather support for never-ending Wall Street bailouts.

After a two-day “holiday” to start the week–Martin Luther King Day today (Monday) and Inauguration Day tomorrow (Tuesday)–it’ll be back to business on Wednesday as Congress begins to grill U.S. Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner – the appointment many observers believe to be the most important of the new Barack Obama administration.

“Yes we can,” as incoming president Barack Obama famously declared in his presidential victory speech. Head down the road to The Capitol and we’ll need to modify that to, “Yes, we might,” as lawmakers in Congress debate an $825 billion economic stimulus package.

Retail sales disappoint….  Chuck’s views on the Lone Prop…  Waiting on the ECB…  Emerging market currencies sell off…  And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

ust a week to go now before Barack Obama finally gets his feet under the Oval Office desk. Priority #1: Getting the much-discussed economic stimulus package pushed through Congress and approved.

Give us Madoff! Give us Madoff!  “Oil rises to $39 on Bernanke comments…”  “Asian stocks rise after Bernanke remarks…” When they turned out the lights and closed the doors in New York last night, the Dow had lost 25 points and oil had gone down to $37.

Here are three things you can buy now to capitalize on spiking unemployment, crashing banks and the tumbling dollar. Earlier this week, Chairman Bernanke and his cronies on the U.S. Federal Reserve did the unthinkable, indeed the unimaginable.