Say what? Geithner begs for higher debt ceiling, says it will restore world confidence… Deficit now three times last year’s record… so Congress buys 8 private jets… A currency sea change? Bill Jenkins on the dollar’s surprise rally… Jim Nelson on the best sectors for income investing… John Williams digs deeper into Friday’ jobs report… four data distortions you need to know…

“It is critically important that Congress act before the [debt] limit is reached,” Tim Geithner wrote over the weekend in a letter to lawmakers, “so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations.”

According to one of the world’s biggest banks, 48% of U.S. mortgages will be underwater by 2011. Man… and the critics call us “doom and gloom”?

Now that the subprime, low-income crowd has taken their lashings, there’s a new Great Recession victim — the faux rich.

The stock market is about to finish the best July since 1989. The S&P 500 is up over 8% this month, its best month since April and best July in 20 years. After yesterday’s 1% rally, the index is up to 987. Baring catastrophe today, the S&P will register its fifth consecutive monthly gain.

Bond bubble remerges… details behind the gov’s latest debt struggle… The slow demise of snail mail… USPS forecasts record losses… Customized drugs: Patrick Cox on a breakthrough set to revolutionize health care… Bill Jenkins with another sign the euro is overvalued… his price targets below…

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.

China turns it up another notch… now “concerned about the security” of U.S. investments… Chris Mayer tells the “story of today’s economy”… Mainstream celebrates latest home price index… our perceptive on the housing “recovery”… Three market sectors currently detached from reality… The truth emerges… why Ben Bernanke really bailed out Wall Street…

Here it comes, slowly but surely: “We sincerely hope the U.S. fiscal deficit will be reduced, year after year,” China’s Assistant Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said overnight after talks with Treasury Secretary Geithner. Could he lay it out any more clearly than this?

Resource legend tips his hat to three soon-to-bubble sectors… The housing market has “bottomed out” says PNC… our gentle retort… Alan Knuckman with an economic indicator far superior to unemployment: chicken sales… Our panel of “whiskey shooters” on the worst-case scnerio… how to get out of Dodge if the dollar collapses… Britian now REALLY in crisis… recession, taxes cause wave of pub shutdowns…