By October 2008, CDS were trading at 62 trillion dollars, more than the stock markets of the whole world combined.[...] The derivatives trade was "worth" more than one quadrillion dollars [1,0000 trillion], or larger than the economy of the entire world. (In September 2008, the global Gross Domestic Product was sixty trillion dollars).

...along with [China's] material progress will come something much more profound: self-confidence, and an overcoming of historical resentment born of the region’s colonial experience. A new way of looking at the world, when it fully emerges, will affect how we think of everything from the role of the individual in society to the meaning of economic progress and the history of the novel" (Patrick Smith)

... the problem stems from the sloth, complacency, ignorance and incompetence of ordinary Americans.

Short and stern-faced, Lobo, then 62, was the most important force in the world sugar market. Known as an authoritarian empire builder, he handled about half of the six million tonnes that Cuba, then the world's largest sugar exporter, produced each year. A financier of genius, his personal fortune was estimated at more than $200m ($5bn today).

And when gas promoters say “per mcf”, those mcf’s are projected over 30 or 40 years, or even longer...but accountants exist to make generous assumptions. In fact, 10 years is a reasonable assumption. That is close to what Arthur Berman, a sceptical Houston geologist, thinks is reasonable. As Mr Berman says: “Unconventional gas has at least twice as fast a decline rate as conventional resources. About 85 per cent of the value of shale wells in the Barnett will be produced in the first 10 years.”

Nearly $8,000bn in savings is held in short-term interest-bearing instruments; yet less than half of American families had any sort of formal retirement savings and, for those who did, the median value of those savings was just $45,000. Interest and dividends made up less than 1 per cent of a median family’s income.

The assumption has been that the US has an unlimited supply of shale gas at the present price of about $4-$5 per million British thermal units. But it does not. The gas people I know argue that without an increase to $8 or $9 per mBtu, the real costs of shale gas cannot be covered.

GM claims that it will cost just 60p-70p for the electric charge needed to run the Ampera 40 miles