I spent the weekend at the Washington D.C., Money show. The show has shrunk from last year, and the opinions ranged from "this is an incredible time to buy" to "Aaaaaaiiiiiii!!!!!" I'll have more about that in Wednesday's Money and Markets column.This morning, the market is rising on news of a $586 stimulus plan in China and a new A.I.G. bailout in Washington. I'm not sure why the market thinks this is good news. Last time I looked, the Federal Debt had soared to such levels that each American now owes over $32,000. I think that's unsustainable, as long as the US dollar holds its present value.In other words, it would be a lot easier to bear if that debt was only (in relative terms) $3,200. That's not so scary, is it? I wonder if Uncle Sam is thinking the same thing. The Russians

I’m told there’s a hot new documentary out that’s set to do for the boring world of national debt what Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth did for the boring world of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s called I.O.U.S.A.

I haven’t seen it yet, but there’s certainly an amazing story to be told about how Americans have borrowed too much for too long from the rest of the world. Here’s the trailer on Youtube. Worth watching if your ‘broadband’ is better than mine. It took me 25 minutes to watch a two-minute trailer. I’ll leave a rant about broadband for another day…

Households there borrowed too much to pump up their house prices and believed the resulting growth in their home equity was real. They then spent a good chunk of it buying SUVs and flat-screen televisions and an enormous amount of fatty food.

They could do this because Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan

With the Democratic National Convention in full swing, expect much attention focused on alternative energy, Cleantech and environmental issues. After all, House Speaker Pelosi has mentioned that her goal is to save the planet and Al Gore will show up and do his usual speech on how global warming will destroy the planet if we don’t do anything ASAP. I don’t want my cynicism to show through but have the DNC and Obama’s organizers taken any measures to ensure that this convention is environmentally friendly? How much energy is being used to run the event? Just asking.

Anyway, a great article out in the Jpost today about how Israel is on the way to being a world leader in Cleantech. While Shai Agassi’s electric car initiative has gained many headlines around the world, Israel is also very quietly making strong inroads, in solar and water technologies. The article