Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

WASHINGTON—The Senate voted to defeat a resolution that, if successful, would have held up an increase in the country's statutory borrowing limit. The vote triggers a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling on Friday. The increase brings the total federal government borrowing limit to $16.4 trillion, enough to support Treasury borrowing until past the November elections, but likely not through the end of the year. That could mean that after the elections, a lame-duck session of Congress would have to deal with another increase in the borrowing limit as well as the litany of other divisive issues that will need to be resolved including the question of whether to extend the Bush-era lower tax rates. If you ever doubted that debt is related to the value of the dollar, have a look at this chart (courtesy sharelynx). The price of gold has historically tracked with our national debt. Now: ask yourself what would happen if our debt became so unsustainable that we cou...

"There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance." -- William F. Buckley, Jr. (who died today at 82) Gasoline prices, which for months lagged the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising fast. Some experts say they could hit $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily and oil closed at an all-time high on Tuesday of $100.88 a barrel. I may have been a year early in my predictions, but my views have not changed. I drive to work in a Toyota Corolla that gets 37MPG. But that's not what I'm worried about. "The effect of high oil prices today could be the difference between having a recession and not having a recession," says Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist. Wrong, Mr. Rogoff. The effect of high oil prices today could be the difference between the recession we are already in, and a depression of mind-boggling proportions. It's not just oil prices, or real estate down the toilet - its ...