The Seattle Times - "Half of us have one month of cash cushion if laid off" (3-21-09)

"Americans are in a collective state of financial depression as many admit they could cover their bills for two months at most if suddenly jobless, a nightmare more and more worry may come true. A group of surveys found a growing number of consumers are a few paychecks away from a household collapse. Even as many scramble to shore up savings, rainy-day funds are being depleted to cover food and energy bills, mortgage and car payments."

Geldpress - "Fed Monetized Debt When Foreign Debt Holders Stop Buying" (3-20-09)

"What is a highly indebted nation to do when faced with the difficult task of managing over $11 trillion in 'reported' debt, while at the same time finding new foreign buyers for an expected $2 trillion yearly deficit? The answer has been discussed at length in the news over the last week, but you may have missed it. The current $11 trillion dollar national debt was financed by selling bonds. But as that debt burden grows to unsustainable levels, investors get nervous about the sanity of additional purchases. When that happens, the alternative is to MONETIZE THE DEBT."

Yahoo - "Administration wants to buy up banks' toxic assets" (3-20-09)

"Some industry officials familiar with the details said Saturday they expected the approach would try to remove as much as $1 trillion from banks' books. An announcement from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could come as early as Monday."

Orange County Register - "Slump zaps Coto de Caza homes" (3-21-09)

"According to Planeta, there are 116 homes listed at prices higher than $750,000. Ten are in escrow and just eight sales closed in the last 30 days. 'At that rate, it will take a year to exhaust the inventory of listed homes,' Planeta said. On her blog, Planeta says the highest priced home currently in escrow is for $1.1 million. The highest sale in the last 30 days was for $1.6 million."

Orange County Register - "Washington Mutual sues FDIC for $13 billion" (3-21-09)

"Reuters said Washington Mutual, the part that’s still independent, has sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for more than $13 billion over how the agency handled the seizure of WaMu’s banking operations, which were sold to JPMorgan Chase."