Yesterday, the Dow was down 150 points the last time we checked it. And this morning, Asian stocks are falling again. China’s stock market has fallen below its 200-day moving average – a bad sign.

Is this a little correction in the long upward climb of stock prices? Is it a pause in humanity’s march to perfection? Or is it a resumption of the bear market that began 2 years ago?

The way we see it, things go up and down…round and round…back and forth. Human life may become more comfortable, with technical progress and innovation. But every life still ends in the same place it did a million years ago. Ashes to ashes…dust to dust…

And what about the life of a company? Or a stock? Or a bull market? You know the answer. They end up where they began, nowhere. Everything ends up in the same place…back where it started. The

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I don't often agree with the Obama administration. So I have to say that I was surprised when I heard it had a plan to reduce the risk of another banking crisis. It wants to prohibit banks that are... Money Morning is here to help investors profit handsomely on this seismic shift in the global economy. In fact, we believe this is where the only real fortunes will be made in the months and years to come. Money moves markets. But Money Morning lets you move first.

Snowy Sweden had its own banking crisis in the 1990s, but due to extensive bailouts emerged relatively unscathed… well, aside from rampant nationalizations and socialistic tendencies. Sound familiar?

Now, another hot idea from that same ice kingdom is catching on in the US. In 2009, in order to “protect” lenders, Sweden put a stability fee, charged to banks, into law. The idea is sock away a fund capable of financing future bank bailouts should the need arise.

It’s not entirely clear why lenders need so much protection. They are the ones choosing how and to whom to lend. Maybe it just sounds more considerate than using taxpayer money?

From The New York Times, here are the details on how the program works in Sweden:

“But Stockholm went further, introducing a permanent stability fee on banks and other credit institutions that some now see as a model for other countries.

“The levies

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The theme for this edition's top 5 graphs is US lending. I sourced some data from the US Federal Reserve on Aggregate lending by US commercial banks over the last 30-odd years, the data is seasonally adjusted, and is originally on a weekly basis. It is useful to look at this information to see how loan growth has unfolded over time; has it changed in composition? has it changed in patterns? how has it tracked recently?br /br /It is particularly interesting to look at this information now for two reasons; 1. The recession we are in/were in (glass half empty/half full) was triggered by a banking crisis, and 2. A sure sign of a strengthening economy will be loan growth (businesses borrowing to invest, and/or consumers feeling more confident/having greater capacity take on new loans. It also says something about availability of credit, business cycles, composition of the economy, and ...

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has been putting on a full-court press in the last 24 hours, making the case for his plan to shore-up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"I would rather not be in the position of asking for extraordinary authorities to support the GSEs," Paulson said in a speech Tuesday in NYC. "But I am playing the hand that I have been dealt. There is a need to support efforts that strengthen Fannie and Freddie's ability to continue to play their important role in financing mortgages and in our capital markets more broadly."

The timing of Paulson's speech - and various and sundry media appearances - is not coincidental. This week, Congress is expected to vote on housing legislation that includes Paulson's plan, which a GAO report said is likely to cost the government $25 billion.

But $25 billion - or

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