BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed.

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

The financially troubled U.S. Postal Service reported an $8.5 billion loss in the fiscal year that ended in September and said it will run out of money in 2011 if economic conditions don't improve and Congress doesn't act.

Mises scholar, Dr. Robert P. Murphy, has officially thrown down the gauntlet; challenging Paul Krugman to a public debate (Keynesian vs Austrian business cycle theory) moderated by a person of mutual choosing. The challenge was issued by Murphy on October 20, 2010 on The Point.

Agricultural Raw Materials are up 24%, The Mineral Index is up 25%, The Metals Price Index is up 26%, Coffee is up 45%, Barley is up 32%, Oranges are up 35%, Beef is up 23%, Pork is up 68%, Salmon is up 30%, Sugar is up 24%, Wool is up 30%, Cotton is up 40%, Palm oil is up 26%, Hides is up 25%, Rubber is up 62%, Iron Ore up 103%. Those are prices at the wholesale level.

The Teamsters added nearly 40 new members earlier this month by organizing the country's first group of unionized marijuana growers. Such an arrangement is likely only possible in California, which has the nation's loosest medical marijuana laws.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/20/3042051/medical-marijuana-growers-join....

Fidel Castro no longer believes in communism. "The Cuban [economic] model doesn't even work for us anymore."

From the guys (Peter Schiff et al) who were mocked and predicted the current financial crisis, comes new revelations that the worst is yet to come; the biggest bubble of all is about to burst: The Bailout Bubble.
Check out this short but pretty powerful documentary that touches on why we're not of the crisis, but why things are probably going to get worse before they get better.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said Moscow was bidding to help lead efforts to build a new world economic order after the old system collapsed in the global financial crisis....

Countries in debt may fall to dictators, EC chief warns -- 'Apocalyptic' vision as some states run out of money --- Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned.

ATLANTA – Six Democratic senators want to hit U.S. airlines with a tax if they charge passengers for their carryon bags.

The senators said Wednesday that this would keep more airlines from following Spirit Airlines' lead. The small Florida airline said last week that starting Aug. 1 it will charge its customers as much as $45 to bring a bag aboard its aircraft and put it in an overhead bin.