This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy. Please also add the links to any other thought-provoking articles you would like to share to the comments section.

• Paul Krugman (The New York Times): Averting the worst, August 9, 2009. So it seems that we aren’t going to have a second Great Depression after all. What saved us? The answer, basically, is Big Government.

• Niall Ferguson (Financial Times): A runaway deficit may soon test Obama’s luck, August 10, 2009. Six months in, “Felix the Prez” still has the look of a lucky, two-term president. But that could change if voters become even more disenchanted with the legislative branch and start blaming the president for the looming fiscal train-wreck.

• Simon Johnson (The Baseline Scenario):

Tuesday, March 24, 2009Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The 15-year depression is coming… Drink yourself to death! Martin Weiss’s deflationary outlook… A sucker’s rally with legs… Protecting your wealth from inflation… Jeff Clark: the S&P will go below 600… The truth behind China’s dollar holdings… Big government gets bigger… And more! 

*** “This is the big one,” says Republican Congressman Ron Paul, who yesterday said the depression will last 15 years. It makes a nice change from all the hooting and wailing about a bottom being in for stocks.

“The U.S. government just won’t allow the correction the economy needs,” says Paul, citing the mini-depression of 1921, which lasted just a year. This was because insolvent companies were allowed to fail. “No one remembers that one. They’ll remember this one, because it will last 15 years.”

Paul

Following an historic election, we take a moment to examine just what an Obama presidency will mean to the United States - what we have to look forward to, and how he will deal with our current financial crisis. And according Jim Davidson, some of the numbers just don’t add up.

One of Obama’s prime campaign planks has been his promise to mercilessly raise taxes on the “rich,” a group initially defined as those making more than $250,000 per year. This was later dropped to $200,000 per year, and more recently has been defined as those Americans making more than $150,000 annually.

Setting aside the precipitous downward slide in the definition of “rich,” there is ample reason to suspect that Obama’s tax changes portend much higher, if not confiscatory, taxes on the most productive Americans. Obama has strongly argued for higher taxes as a way of employing government to alter the

Huge trend reversal: Dollar busts, commodities boom… why, and will it last? Rate cuts round the world… U.S. and China slash, Japan considers. U.S. three months away from “official” recession. Two new bailouts: Who’s lining up for help, plus Uncle Sam’s October tab. Denning and Nelson on beating inflation with the right long-haul stock.

The U.S. dollar fell by its largest percentage in 13 years yesterday.

Et voila, the trend we believe is your friend returned with some impressive steam:

The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index popped 5.9% — diddly squat compared with equity moves lately, but still the biggest daily gain for the index since its inception, in 1956.

Alas, despite the rise, the CRB is still down 24%

Still on the topic of the bail-out plan, guest contributor Bill King (The King Report) offers his ideas on how to put a more credible plan together. His thoughts are insightful and deserve the urgent attention of the powers that be.

Premises • The US credit system is broken. • The Paulsen-Bernanke Bailout Plan does not insure that those banks and brokers that receive bailout aid will increase lending. The reality is the market is hoarding liquidity and these banks are likely to do the same. More importantly consumer lending has been a small, often insignificant part of their business. They made money by trading and through securitization of debt. • It is necessary to create a new system parallel