No one wants to utter the word "depression." But the truth of the matter is that the American economy may be entering a state of free fall.

This article seems less rigorous than the Lawrence Summers piece, but may be of interest.

Symptoms of an economic depression

Paulson talked about the importance of preventing foreclosures now but concluded, "Under the worst conditions, you would be . . . going through a modification or a refinancing program. But we'll have five years to deal with it."

And there you have it, folks. That's been the problem all along.

We are in this predicament because homeowners were told not to worry about their ridiculously low interest rates because they could refinance later before the rates reset. Or they were delusional in thinking they could afford future rate increases if they couldn't refinance.

Don't worry. Be happy.

Well, people aren't happy now.

A Subpar Plan to Save Subprime Borrowers

The plan is too little, too late and too voluntary.

Show Us the Mortgage Relief

ONCE it was only revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro who could seize a Caribbean island. Yesterday it was Google, the internet giant, that took control of Necker in the British Virgin Islands for the wedding of Larry Page, its co-founder.

There was a price: Sir Richard Branson, the island’s owner, was ready to step up as best man for the marriage of his fellow multi-billionaire.

Google boss’s Virgin wedding

The United States must scrap the current structure of the State Department and radically reshape its foreign assistance, trade and diplomatic programs to create a super-size (1,2,3,4) international affairs agency to meet overseas challenges.

Some thoughts:

Attendant: More anything?
Jerry: More everything!

Is more what we really need?

In my opinion not.

But ... more is what Congress is ready to support and fund, ... and more is what we are going to get.

The federal government is on a “burning platform,” and the status quo way of doing business is unacceptable ...

Current Fiscal Policy Is Unsustainable: we cannot simply grow our way out of this problem. Tough choices will be required.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

Mrs. Clinton said that making personal attacks on Mr Obama was going to be "fun".

Foreign Affairs Panel Calls For Overhaul of State Dept.

The actress Mia Farrow was adopting children from the Third World nearly 30 years before Angelina Jolie got in on the act. Her rainbow family was blown apart when her then husband Woody Allen fell in love with their adopted daughter. Now she has turned her focus to the beleaguered people of Sudan, and has set up the Fund4Darfur to help the 2m people driven from their homes by government militias

Mother Waif calls to the forsaken

Somewhere along the way, the zendo quality of the Apple Store changed.

The demi-privacy of it, the clubby feeling -- I know that you know that I know that we know and love Macs like nobody else does-- is fading away. Too much commotion. The ethereal, tranquil, spa vibe (the bath of white light, the polished concrete floors, the glint in the happy eyes of the geniuses at the Genius Bar) has been pierced by the sheer popularity of the place. The TV commercials worked. Mac Guy, even with his non-arrogant arrogance, is your real friend, and then he gathered too many friends, and suddenly he doesn't have time for them all.

The Elite Apple Corps

The two Iranians were of opposite worlds, one secular and rich, the other pious and poor. In post-revolutionary Tehran, they built a friendship and a business.

Redesigning two women's lives

Radiohead’s pay-what-you-choose gambit didn’t just set off economic debates. It should also establish 2007 as two kinds of tipping point for recorded music.

Pay What You Want for This Article

As southern Afghanistan collapses into chaos, and as corruption and massive inflation takes hold, the Taliban is gaining more and more recruits. The generals who convinced Benazir that control of Kabul via the Taliban would give them ‘strategic depth’ may have retired, but their successors know that the Afghans will not tolerate a long-term Western occupation. They hope for the return of a whitewashed Taliban. Instead of encouraging a regional solution that includes India, Iran and Russia, the US would prefer to see the Pakistan army as its permanent cop in Kabul. It won’t work. In Pakistan itself the long night continues as the cycle restarts: military leadership promising reforms degenerates into tyranny, politicians promising social support to the people degenerate into oligarchs. Given that a better functioning neighbour is unlikely to intervene, Pakistan will oscillate between these two forms of rule for the foreseeable future. The people who feel they have tried everything and failed will return to a state of semi-sleep, unless something unpredictable rouses them again. This is always possible.

Tariq Ali: Daughter of the West