NEW YORK - September 9, 2010 - This week's government debt sale ended on a sour note, with investors unfriendly toward a sale of long bonds.

The $13 billion sale of 30-year bonds fetched a high yield of 3.82%, 0.042 percentage points above the "when issued" expectations. Bidders put up 2.73 times the amount bid, a measure known as the bid-to-cover ratio.

NEW YORK - September 9, 2010 - The federal government should take mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac off life support sooner rather than later, the Mortgage Bankers Association urged on Wednesday.

LAKE COMO, Italy - September 7, 2010 - Even if the U.S. and European economies manage to avoid a double dip, it will still feel like a Depression, while more than half of the 800-plus U.S. banks on the "critical list" are likely to go bust, according to renowned economist Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics.

LONDON, England - September 7, 2010 - Public transit ground to a halt across France and on the London Tube on Tuesday, with tourists and commuters bearing the brunt of a wave of discontent over government austerity measures.

French unions challenged unpopular President Nicolas Sarkozy with a major nationwide strike over plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, shutting down trains, planes, buses, subways, post offices and schools.

NEW YORK - September 7, 2010 - Detroit, Los Angeles and Cleveland are the most stressful cities in Amerika, according to a new study.

"Detroit has a lot of things going against it. It topped nearly all our standards for our stress test, although it was rarely number one," said Portfolio.com editor J. James Moss. "Across the board, it was bad."

NEW YORK - September 6, 2010 - Japan’s and Australia’s central banks signaled that the outlook for U.S. growth is deteriorating, making it tougher for them to set monetary policy.

The Reserve Bank of Australia extended a pause in raising interest rates “for the time being” today, even after the nation’s gross domestic product rose the most since 2007. The Bank of Japan said it’s prepared to add more monetary stimulus after last week’s emergency decision to expand a credit program that followed a tumble in the dollar against the yen.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

LONDON, England - September 5, 2010 - The United States, Japan and large parts of Europe have exhausted their policy arsenal, leaving them defenseless against a double-dip recession as recovery slows to ‘stall speed’.  “The U.S. has run out of bullets,” said Nouriel Roubini, professor at New York University, and one of a cast of luminaries with grim forecasts at the annual Ambrosetti conference on Lake Como.