House passes climate change bill… Byron King on what it means for America’s energy future… Don’t ignore Iran… how their crisis could affect your portfolio… Millionaires migrating… The 5 charts the great wealth shift of 2009-2013… Madoff gets 150 years… and the SEC gets more money?

Goldman Raises $5 Billion to Repay TARP; Cost Cutting Will Save Royal Phillips $664 Million; Johnson & Johnson Earnings Saved By Cost Cuts; Singapore Forecasts 6%-9% 2009 Decline; Discover to Cut 500 Jobs; LIBOR Rate Dropping Fast; Coal Prices to Stay Low in 2009; Madoff Firm Files Bankruptcy

“Stone him to death!” No kidding. Dilapidation may be coming back into style. That’s what one of Madoff’s victims proposed in front of the courthouse.

Much on my mind on a Friday morning.  So let’s dive right in.

There is a saying in the world of Austrian economics about the business cycle. The puzzle is not to explain business failures. Those are part of the normal course of life, and the sign of a healthy economy. The puzzle is to explain the “cluster of errors” that appears at the beginning of a recession. How could so many have been so wrong about so much at the same time? The business cycle is a system-wide failure, not merely the mistaken judgment of a few.