Economics and Investing:

Farmer John suggested this article: 20 Cities Where Housing Prices Are Still Dropping Like A Knife

Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What is Poverty in the United States Today? (Thanks to K.A.F. for the link.)

John R. sent another big bunch-o’-links:

The Fed Is Now More Leveraged That Lehman Brothers Was  (Graham Summers)  

Global Economic Crisis: Finance is the New Mode of Warfare (Michael Hudson)  

Portugal Joins Spain and Greece in Lying About its “Colossal” Deficit (Tyler Durden)  

Five buys, Five sells for 10 long years of no growth—Commentary: Recession hits in 2012, and things don’t get better (Paul B. Farrell)   

You Want to Fix the U.S. Economy? Here’s a Start (Charles Hugh Smith)  

The Correlations are Failing Karl Denninger     

Crisis in Confidence?   (Gary Tanashian)     

Items from The Economatrix:

Fears About Debt Send Gold Price to Record

Debt Worries Drag Down the Stock Market

$5 Trillion of Financial Assets Go Up in Smoke

The CON Game:  Confidence, Spending, and Inflation Expectations

Poor Man’s Gold is Breaking Out — Sell Your House and Buy Silver?