John Stepek (Money Week UK):
Deal making is back!

That was the general reaction from the press when US food giant Kraft launched its first bid for British confectioner Cadbury less than two months ago. Pundits spewed out potential target prices like bingo numbers – £8, no £10, no £12! – and analysts scribbled out scenarios involving white knights and rival bidders from across the globe.

Everyone assumed that the government would ride to the rescue of doomed brokerage Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH). Everyone was wrong. The financial markets are close to ruin. But there is a bright side, says John Stepek in British financial magazine MoneyWeek. The remaining players now know that not everyone is too big to fail…

Things must be getting bad. Politicians are resorting to telling the truth. Chancellor Alistair Darling caused something of a stir at the weekend by admitting that economic conditions are “arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years.” The financial crisis will be “more profound and long-lasting than people thought,” he said in an interview with The Guardian.

There’s a merger boom going on right now, but amid all the gloom, no one’s really paying much attention.

Inflation’s soaring, the pound’s collapsing, and the Bank of England reckons we could be heading for recession. But one man still has a smile on his face.

It’s time to sell Russia. The end of the easy money era and the war in Georgia don’t, at first glance, seem to have an obvious connection. But they are linked. Bear with me, and I’ll explain why.

It’s like something out of a cheesy disaster movie. Just when we thought all was lost, and the Western world was going to be consumed by recession, the mighty US market drags itself back to its feet. The Dow Jones jumped by more than 300 points on Friday.

Yesterday, Smart Commodities UK editor Garry White gave readers five reasons to invest in Russia, even as it is engaged in a war with Georgia.

However, the markets tell a different story. Two benchmark Russian share indexes – the RTS index and the MICEX index – hit their lowest levels in nearly two years yesterday.

John Stepek in Money Morning UK is bearish on Russia. He says the country is a basket case built mainly on petrodollars. This leaves it particularly vulnerable to a long-term correction in crude oil prices…

British banks and their shareholders are having a tough old time of it. But their woes have made at least one person an awful lot richer.

House prices are falling more quickly than ever, according to the latest property survey.