Welcome to the United States of Austerity / Towards a very serious breakdown of the world economic and financial system

... whence Ben Bernanke's speech full of veiled threats to his central banker colleagues: in ambiguous terms, he passed the following message: "We will try everything and anything to avoid an economic and financial collapse and you will continue to finance this 'everything and anything', otherwise we let inflation loose and thus devalue the Dollar whilst US Treasury Bonds will no longer be worth much." When a central banker expresses himself like a common cash extortionist, there is danger in the house... it is really in spring 2011 that the United States has an appointment with austerity, an appointment that the rest of the world will impose if it is paralyzed politically.

Good comments. The Mortgage Purchase Applications Index chart in this piece is also rather chilling.