Feel like getting angry? Treasury publishes latest debt/deficit details… But Fed now encouraged to intervene more… latest data show historic inflation drop… How to invest accordingly? Burritt on near-term trading, Grantham on the long haul… Byron King explains why $40 oil is “worst of both worlds”… Bill Jenkins explains the dollar’s recent downturn… Plus, the Dububble expands… refrigerated beaches on UAE shores…

However dire you think U.S. government’s fiscal condition has become… today we learn it’s even worse. For starters, would you invest in this business?

2008 fiscal year net operating cost: $1 trillion. Triple that of 2007. And those aren’t funky alternative accounting methods… today’s charts and numbers come directly from the 2008 Financial Report of the U.S. Government, issued yesterday.

What is “net cost”? It is “computed by subtracting earned revenue

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Job market takes another turn for the worse… unemployment data at 26-year high… Government solution:spend… budget and trade deficits swell more than expected… Byron King on falling oil demand… and what it means for long-term investors… Gold soars… Ed Bugos with some fresh price targets… Signs of the times… Chinese bank opens in U.S., world’s biggest LBO collapses… Plus, Chris Mayer on the automaker bailout

Americans filed over 573,000 jobless claims last week — the most since 1982.

The Labor Dept. also said the number of people collecting unemployment reached a 26-year high too, 4,429,000.

Unfortunately, we’re just getting started if a study released this morning by UCLA is accurate. The Anderson School of Management predicts we will see negative GDP for the current and first two quarters of 2009… and the unemployment rate to

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Government mulls mortgage price-control plan… who needs the free market anyway? Dan Denning on the true meaning behind the recent bull market in bonds. Stocks rally on Beige Book release… did the Fed send us the wrong copy? Bill Gross on stock evaluation for the Brave New World of tomorrow. Byron King with anecdotal evidence that oil is well oversold.

The vomit approach continues at the Treasury. This time their throwing up historically low mortgages on the wall… just to see if they stick. The U.S. Treasury is considering a proposal to offer new mortgages at 4.5% through Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE). That’s a point and a half lower than the silly “free market” says it should be.

Should this mortgage plan come

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Trico Marine Services, Inc. is a provider of marine support vessels to the offshore oil and gas industry, operating primarily in international markets, with operations in the North Sea, West Africa, Mexico, Brazil and Southeast Asia, as well as in the Gulf of Mexico. With their fleet of vessels, Trico provides a broad range of services to offshore oil and gas operators, including transportation of drilling materials, supplies and crews to drilling rigs and other offshore facilities and towing of drilling rigs and equipment from one location to another.

Greg Williams, an analyst at Al Frank, believes that “Trico has significant flexibility with sale/leaseback or similar financing options in the event of any doomsday credit crunch. The subsea services fleet, which now accounts for the bulk of Trico’s revenue, is among the youngest in the industry at an average age of seven years,” notes Williams. “Contract renewals, even in the

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Vortex Resources Corp is a publicly traded independent emerging natural resources company. The company’s focus is on the acquisition, exploration, development and production of oil, natural gas and minerals. Recently, the young company has been making a name for themselves in Crockett County, Texas where they own the rights to drill 180 wells in the Adams-Baggett field. Vortex estimates that each well contains 500 million cubic feet of natural gas reserves, which will allow them to rise quickly in the natural resource industry. One of the reasons for the company’s success is their dynamic management team which is led by their Chairman Mike M. Mustafoglu.

Mustafoglu has spent over 30 years in the energy industry where he has earned a reputation for being a leader in his field. Mustofoglu’s success has spanned the entire globe. After receiving his MBA, he was recruited by J.

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The Democrats are in a very strong position following Tuesday’s election. Andrew Snyder says oil majors like Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) and BP (NYSE:BP) will face higher taxes and stricter legislation. But offshore drilling experts with international exposure like Transocean (NYSE:RIG) remain an excellent long-term investment.

This from Today’s Financial News:

This cannot be good for the oil industry. There is a very left-leaning Democrat packing his bags and heading to Washington. The high-profit, we’ve-got-them-bent-over-a-table oil industry must be pinching itself hoping this is nothing more than a bad dream.

Unfortunately, it is real. Democrats now control the White House, the Senate, the House, the courts, our schools, and a large chunk of our nation’s banks. All that is left for us pro-business voters to do is pray they do not infiltrate the rest of Wall Street.

Over the next few years, the nation’s thriving businesses will face a strong headwind. Higher

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Ultrapetrol is expanding its river system business as commodities shipping booms. The company reported record revenues in the second quarter as revenues rose 50%. Ultrapetrol has surprised the last two quarters by an average of 135.90%. It's trading at only 5.1x forward earnings.

Company Description

Ultrapetrol Bahamas Limited (ULTR) is an international industrial shipping company that transports grain, vegetable oils, minerals, crude, petroleum and supplies the offshore oil platform market and the leisure passenger cruise market.

The company, a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy), operates 591 barges, including river barges and pushboats that transport dry bulk and liquid cargoes in rivers throughout South America that feed to ocean ports. It is the largest operator through the Hidrovia Region of South America, which is rich in agriculture, forests and mineral resources.

ULTR's offshore supply business operates 5 vessels that provide transportation and other support for offshore petroleum platforms in

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What an interesting turn of events overnight. First, OPEC cut its production by 500,000 barrels a day. At least, that’s what they said, though Saudi Arabia said it’s not planning to reduce its production. You can see why the market takes this cutback talk with a grain of salt.

Then, the IEA cut its oil demand growth forecast – not by much, but enough to add credence to a global slowdown theory.

And then this morning, we got the Weekly Petroleum Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 5.9 million barrels from the previous week. That’s a much bigger drop than the 3.9 million barrel-drop that was expected. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 6.5 million barrels last week – bigger than the 4.7 million barrel drop that was expected. Refineries operated ...

VANCOUVER, B.C. - The U.S. financial crisis has cut so deep - and the government has taken on so much debt in misguided attempts to bail out such companies as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - that even larger financial shocks are still to come, global investing guru Jim Rogers said in an exclusive interview with Money Morning. Indeed, the U.S. financial debacle is now so ingrained - and a so-called "Super Crash" so likely - that most Americans alive today won’t be around by the time the last of this credit-market mess is finally cleared away - if it ever is, Rogers said. The end of this crisis "is a long way away," Rogers said. "In fact, it may not be in our lifetimes." During a 40-minute interview during a wealth-management conference in this West Coast Canadian city last month, Rogers also said:...

We maintain our Buy rating on TOTAL S.A.  (TOT) ADRs after the company reported first quarter results. We continue to like the company for its positive production-growth profile, attractive returns and an improving outlook for the refining and chemical businesses.

We also like the company's active share buyback program and the recent increases in the dividend. Growth in production now is higher than its peers and we expect momentum to accelerate in the coming quarters.

TOTAL has one of the best production-growth profiles among the oil super majors, driven by an above-industry-average exposure to the faster-growing hydrocarbon producing regions of the world. The company is targeting annual production growth rates of 5% through 2010. With the lowest exposure to the mature North American and North Sea regions among the oil super majors, TOTAL's upstream assets have lower natural decline rates and have longer productive lives.

The company's strong balance sheet

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