Merry Christmas, Mr. President.

"The New Basel Accord proposes to use precisely those measures of risk and credit quality that caused such fiascos as Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat."

--C. Whalen

"If a major corporation--with more retirees than current employees--were to go bankrupt, the PBGC would quickly face a tremendous financial crunch of its own. Unfunded liabilities of defined benefit plans are estimated at about $350 billion, or about 20 percent of their liabilities."

--R. Kubarych

"The situation in the world oil markets today bears a remarkable similarity to the ... late 1960s."

--P. Verleger

"The Chinese banking system looks rather like Japan's on the eve of the bursting bubble ... We could see a social upheaval that Dr. Masoch and Count De Sade would appreciate."

--M. Leden

"The Chinese banking system looks rather like Japan's on the eve of the bursting bubble ... We could see a social upheaval that Dr. Masoch and Count De Sade would appreciate."

--M. Ledeen

Was China's "boom of 2003 not a sustainable resurgence but rather an envestment-led bubble ... a boo-bust scenario?"

--T. Nakamae

"The outlook for the dollar in 2005 will depend upon whether China has a continuing boom."

--D. Hale

"The Japanese story is repeated to a remarkable degree in both Germany and the United States following the collapse of the global information technology bubble in 2000."

--R. Koo

America's "trade deficit in manufacturers [is] leading to intensified shrinkage in manufacturing employment."

--R. McKinnon