If only China had someone like St. Patrick.  As I scanned the post-Paddy’s Day headlines, it occurred to me that China needs its own saint to drive some snakes out of its economy. 

Everything but Treasuries trades heavily…  Fundamentally speaking on Australia…  Bank of Canada to cut rates today…  Tell me your story… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

In an interview with the Financial Times yesterday (Monday), Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said his government is ready to expand on the $586 billion (2 trillion yuan) stimulus package it unveiled late last year.

A spree of economic props dominoed across Europe today (Thursday) all sharing the same theme – stopping the global financial crisis from getting worse. The European Central Bank took a drastic step to protect the Eurozone economy from shrinking further by lowering its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 2.5%.

The U.S. economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.3% in the third quarter – the biggest decline in seven years – after businesses cut back on investments and consumer spending experienced its sharpest pullback since 1980. And though the contraction was smaller than economists expected, they are still predicting a drawn-out downturn that could be one of worst U.S. recessions since the Great Depression.

The recession is underway. The US economy shrank by 0.3% y-o-y in the third quarter. Adam Lass says politicians need to accept the truth and allow the economy to correct itself. Only then will stock markets genuinely recover. When they do, some investors will make a fortune. But to survive until then, Adam says it is essential to buy put options on weak companies.

The slump in the U.S. continues, says Bill Bonner in The Daily Reckoning. There’s “blood in the street,” says Barron’s of America’s most famous street, located in lower Manhattan. Fortune tells us that the “next wave of mortgage defaults” is coming.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 0.9% in the first quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced yesterday (Wednesday).

Bear Stearns Shareholders Approve JPMorgan Sale; Sears Expects More Pain After Loss; Weak Economy Emboldening Costco; Pacific Rim GDP Growth; Staff Reduction at GM.

Has oil hit its peak price or not? The answer to that question leads us to ask whether or not commodities are a bubble about to burst. Barron’s recent cover story on commodities came down on the side that the party was over.