A former Wall Street trader and Yale-educated attorney, who was convicted of arson yesterday for burning down his Phoenix mansion, appeared to pop a pill after hearing the guilty verdict in court and died minutes later, according to Fox 10 News in Phoenix via New York Daily News. Michael James Marin, who once reached the summit of Mount Everest, was convicted in Maricopa County Superior Court "of arson of an occupied structure" after setting his $3.5 million Biltmore Estates mansion on fire because he could no longer pay his $17,500 monthly mortgage, according to media reports.

Essentially, Standard Chartered is suggesting that while corporate China have to sell US dollar whenever they receive their payments in US dollar, the data suggests that they are selling a lot more US dollar than the trade surplus data suggest that they should, thus they seem to have been building up a net short position in US dollar.

Stockton, California was poised on Tuesday to take a major step toward becoming the largest U.S. city ever to file for bankruptcy after talks with its creditors on Monday at midnight.

THE local fallout from the collapse of international derivatives trader MF Global is being played out in the New South Wales Supreme Court, where the liquidator, Deloitte, is asking how it can allocate available sums to clients who are owed $309 million

Credit Suisse plans to axe one third of senior employees in its European investment banking department

Cyprus has become the fifth eurozone country to seek outside financial help to shore up its ailing economy after a day of heavy selling on financial markets prompted by fear that this week's European summit will end without a blueprint to rescue the single currency.

Similarly, almost every country in the world is some form of insolvency from decades of deficit spending and debt financing/printing. Despite all the Euro Bond, Euro Banking Union, bailouts, and Operation Twist in the world, they will not change the inescapable conclusion: Deficit Spending does not work. Countries are no different from individuals. Ultimately, each country has to spend no more than it's taking in as income. Staying on its current course, the world eventually could be divided into three camps: bankruptcy (aka bailout), credit counseling (aka government austerity and household deleveraging), and debt renegotiation (aka "haircut"). PIIGS are only the beginning.