If you are 100 miles from the Canadian border, travelling on a bus or train, try real hard not to look un-American.

And make sure you have all necessary and valid id.

On the heels of the Jackson Hole meetings a slew of analysis that the American economy is in deep trouble, the US equity market is in the 10th year of a bear market, the Fed has completely blown its mandate, and conflicting prescriptions. Now we have to start to imagine whether the economic malaise will generate a political response from the right that will be something closer to Mussolini. The pieces are falling into place.

Gwynne Dyer on the problems with the Chinese economy, the chilling news about Japanese sons and daughters keeping mummified parents hidden to collect their old age pensions, the unsurprising news that kindergarten pays off, and the New Scientist on a stressed earth's 9 lives.

The New York Times reports that US border guards are working the Buffalo-Rochester corridor with increasing vigilence.

The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/nyregion/30border.html?_r=3&ref=todayspaper

Lex on the confusion after this year's Jackson Hole meetings. What is a central bank to do?

The financial crisis, another retrospective. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/49800438-b3a1-11df-81aa-00144feabdc0.html

John Mauldin argues that US equities are currently in the fourth bear market since 1900. He argues that the only thing that really matters is the long-term growth rate of the US economy, and the thus danger from rising deficit levels. 90% and bust.

Market analysts (of which I am a minor variety) talk all the time about secular bull and bear cycles. I argued in this column in 2002 (and later in Bull’s Eye Investing) that most market analysts use the wrong metric for analyzing bull and bear cycles. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/08/the-dark-side-of-deficits/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29

 

So the description is that things are bad and the US is on the verge of a second recession in two years. The prescriptions?

The Fed must print more money.

The US recovery is stalling. As a matter of economics the balance of risks strongly favours further fiscal and monetary stimulus. Politics appears to rule out the first, and a divided Federal Reserve is hesitating over the second. America’s leaders are letting the country down. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f04d8600-b397-11df-81aa-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=rss&ftcamp=crm/email/2010830/nbe/Comment/product

The Fed must not print more money.

The United States needs to stop printing money and take on austerity measures like the Europeans did, in order for the economy to recover, said billionaire investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings. http://www.cnbc.com/id/38913263

The federal government must stimulate the economy.

OUR national debate about fiscal policy has become skewed, with far too much focus on the deficit and far too little on unemployment. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29tyson.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

The federal government must not stimulate the economy.

To no one's surprise except perhaps Vice President Joe Biden's, second quarter economic growth was revised down yesterday to 1.6% from the prior estimate of 2.4%, which was down from first quarter growth of 3.7%, which was down from the 2009 fourth quarter's 5%. Economic recoveries are supposed to go in the other direction.   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704147804575455823740024224.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

A lengthy, important and disturbing analysis of how the Fed's myopic focus on monetary policy, belief in rational markets, and infatuation with financial technology instead of the proper role of banks in a modern economy has put the US economy and the currency at tremendous risk.

R. Christopher Whalen, 'I Am Superman: The Federal Reserve Board and the Never Ending Crisis'  http://www.rcwhalen.com/pdf/2010-PB-03_Whalen.pdf

Related.

By now there are few people who do not acknowledge that the major American financial institutions and the markets they dominate turn out to have served the country badly in recent years.  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/may/28/the-failure-of-the-economy-the-economists/

A key word caught my eye in the opening sentence of an article from the Independent about the American political scene, 'comic'.  Nothing could be more dangerous and unfunny than to laugh or underestimate the Nativist shift in thinking in the United States today epitomised by the anti-Hispanic immigration law in Arizona or discussion about changing birthright laws. Mussolini redux.

It is always tempting to home in on the absurdity of the Republican right in America, the almost comic quality of some of their views and the ludicrous nature of the accusations they hurl at President Barack Obama.  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-the-threat-to-american-conservatism-2065371.html

Charlie Chaplin's globe scene from the Great Dictator  (1940)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJOuoyoMhj8

Conrad Black weighs in.

As one whose recollections ... http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/08/28/conrad-black-american-apocalypse/#comments

Related.

Visitors to Washington's National Mall could have been excused for thinking they had stumbled across an open-air church service on Saturday, as thousands turned out to answer Fox News host Glenn Beck’s call to “restore honour” to America.  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/62f81d8a-b37c-11df-81aa-00144feabdc0.html

Tony of Victoria sent in this helpful article by Gwynne Dyer about the systemic risks to the Chinese economy.

Will the 21st century belong to China? http://www.straight.com/article-338897/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-chinese-miracle-cautionary-tale

Weird Japan. Mother had been dead for fourteen years. Daughter collected dead mom's social security benefits. Is anyone minding the store?

Police said Sunday they had arrested the 70-year-old daughter of a woman registered as 102 years old but who is most likely dead, for allegedly defrauding the city of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, of ¥300,000 in special benefits her mother would have been owed if she were alive.  http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/nn20100830a3.html

The benefits of early childhood education analysed again.

The billions of dollars the Ontario government intends to spend on its new full-day kindergarten model has the potential to deliver twice as much in immediate returns, according to a report to be released Monday.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/full-day-kindergarten-spending-may-deliver-twice-the-returns-report/article1689468/

The New Scientist and the earth's nine lives.

UP TO now, the Earth has been very kind to us. Most of our achievements in the past 10,000 years - farming, culture, cities, industrialisation and the raising of our numbers from a million or so to almost 7 billion - happened during an unusually benign period when Earth's natural regulatory systems kept everything from the climate to the supply of fresh water inside narrow, comfortable boundaries.  http://www.newscientist.com/special/ocean-to-ozone-earths-nine-life-support-systems