You may have noticed that most of my articles are pretty in depth and lengthy. A fellow IDE editor recently pointed that out and issued a challenge … “I bet you ten bucks you can’t write a one page essay.”

Manufacturing Spending Continue Slide; Macy’s Cuts 7,000 Jobs; Banks Still Not Lending; Renew Energy Files for Bankruptcy; Morgan Stanley Slashes Workforce; Oil Prices Slide 4%; Steelcase Shows Weakness

Think about Michigan or about Ohio’s Mahoning Valley in the 1980s. Both were famous for industries that were world leaders in their time. Yet, once those industries decayed, large parts of both areas became wastelands of home foreclosures, crime and alcoholism.

In mid November, Bank of American Corp. (BAC) ponied up more than $7 billion to nearly double its already existing investment in the state-owned China Construction Bank Corp., a move that gave the biggest U.S. bank a 19% stake in China’s second-largest lender.

Stuck for Christmas gift ideas? Why not try a barrel of oil? You can get one for around US$40 these days. That’s 54% lower than this time last year and 72% below the price on July 14th ($145.16).

The sub-prime catastrophe has spread far beyond the United States. Certain foreign banks have already been swept up into this sub-prime mess. And it’s hardly beyond the realm of plausibility that more foreign banks could fail.

Of all the really bad ideas that have infested the finance business in the last 30 years, the most dangerous is probably the credit default swap (CDS).