As we all know, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) guarantees depositors that they’ll get their money back if a bank fails, at least up to a certain amount. To fund its operations, the FDIC collects small fees from the banks that are held in reserve for the purpose of taking over troubled banks and paying off depositors.

Is it time to buy a house? Depends…

What’s new? Nothing much…Markets still moving up…

For whatever reason, the French newspaper, Liberation, chose to recall a grim event last week. On February 4, 1912 Franz Reichelt, also known as the ‘flying tailor,’ put on his contraption – a homemade outfit designed to work like a parachute – went up to the first observation level of the Eiffel Tower, hesitated…then stepped over the rail and jumped.

I was reading Michael J. Panzner’s book When Giants Fall, a scary-yet-scholarly look at how the hell we got into this mess, and I was impressed with how the title When Giants Fall so perfectly describes America (the heretofore ravenous, gluttonous engine of global economics based on the fraud of an expanding fiat currency) falling on its fat, stupid face.

Comes word this morning that the China State Construction Engineering company has gone public. It’s the biggest public offering – at $7.3 billion – in more than a year. It’s also China’s biggest homebuilder. And as soon as the shares hit the market yesterday they soared… closing 56% higher than the IPO price. At that price, it trades at about 40 times forecast 2009 earnings.

The U.S. Postal Service is on track for a record $7 billion deficit this year. That’s more than double last year’s loss.

Heathrow Airport is a nightmare in many ways. It is so large that it can take hours to get from one terminal to the next. Yet, when we came back from Vancouver on Saturday, we landed at 10:30AM. By 11AM we were in central London.

The jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5% last month – and many economists are betting for the jobless rate to hit 10%.

I wouldn’t read a lot into the action in the gold market on Friday. It was just another day off the calendar…as Ted Butler would say. The only comment I would make is that the action in the gold price feels more like a top than a bottom.