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The United States isn’t merely double-dipping back into recession, but worse — it's in the early stages of a depression that will strangle the economy possibly for years to come, says Robert Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International.

That means investors need to stock up on cash and other funds whose strategy is to succeed in a bear market, Prechter says.

Excessive debt burdens will take years to shake off, and the problem is that many economists underestimate how long a debt-saddled contraction can last, especially when negative social moods hamper economic activity even more.

WASHINGTON - The Senate Banking committee has begun looking into last week's decision by Standard and Poor's to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, a committee aide told Reuters Monday.
The aide said the panel was gathering information about the S&P move but no decision had been made on whether it will hold hearings into the downgrade.

While an official investigation has not been launched, the aide said that all options were being weighed.

Late on Friday, S&P said the world's largest economy no longer deserved the top AAA credit rating, cutting it one notch to AA-plus.

Osama bin Laden was killed in his "mansion," according to the New York Times. Where did America's most wanted terrorist call home?

The compound was located in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan, about two hours outside of Islamabad. According to the Times, while comfortable in some respects, the residents did take security seriously:

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ,
AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS,
ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE,
WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

The banks have gone wild.

Over the last three months, I've been bombarded with stories of banks committing foreclosure fraud to take people's homes. Foreclosure fraud happens when a bank decides that it wants to take someone's house, but it doesn't have legal title to do so. So it forges paperwork to show the court that it can take a home. Judges often agree to a foreclosure, because most of them can't believe a bank would simply falsify paperwork. Since the foreclosure fraud story was exposed, however, Bank of America and JP Morgan-Chase have suspended foreclosures in 23 states, including Florida. Judges are getting more skeptical and demanding paperwork.

The US commercial market loans are coming due for short term loans (5 year loans) now (2010) till 2012. With values of properties declining and for lease signs everywhere, the 3.5 trillion dollar market will impair our economy much further. It is expected that at least 500 banks will go under due to this problem.

Thousands of home foreclosure cases in Florida and nationwide might have been stalled by the sworn testimony of one GMAC Mortgage employee.

Jeffrey Stephan, a GMAC foreclosure team leader, admitted under oath last December that he signed tens of thousands of affidavits verifying mortgage note ownership and amounts, even though he never saw original documents in those cases, according to court documents.

Stephan and GMAC have described the process of signing affidavits as a normal and expected routine that the company engaged in.

On Monday, several national media outlets incorrectly reported that GMAC had announced a blanket moratorium on residential foreclosures. The company denied that in a statement.

Read more: Affidavit problem stalls GMAC foreclosures - South Florida Business Journal

Three of Florida's largest foreclosure law firms are under investigation by the state attorney general following allegations they illegally rushed thousands of cases through the court system.

The firms, dubbed "foreclosure mills" because of the large volume they handle, are the Law Offices of Marshall C. Watson in Fort Lauderdale, Shapiro & Fishman, which has offices in Boca Raton and Tampa, and the Plantation-based firm of David J. Stern. All three handle foreclosures in Palm Beach County.

America's biggest creditor - China - has called our bluff.

As the Financial Times notes, the head of China's biggest credit rating agency has said America is insolvent and that U.S. credit ratings are a joke:

The head of China’s largest credit rating agency has slammed his western counterparts for causing the global financial crisis and said that as the world’s largest creditor nation China should have a bigger say in how governments and their debt are rated.

“The western rating agencies are politicised and highly ideological and they do not adhere to objective standards,” Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, told the Financial Times in an interview.

Islamabad, Pakistan
The death toll from the worst floods in living memory in Pakistan rose to 1,100 on Monday. With rescue efforts are well under way, concern is now shifting to preventing water-borne diseases from spreading among the 1.5 million displaced.