William Cohan does a great job summarizing the current economic problems

Mr. Cohan discusses tax cuts, the federal budget deficit, financial difficulties that states and municipalities are having, as well as confidence in the dollar and the Federal Reserve policies. Here is one sample:

On Monday, the price of gold reached an all-time high of $1,423 an ounce. That night, Charlie Rose gathered on his show a group of experts to talk about it. “Americans, for first time, probably, since the Depression, [have] lost confidence, first, in their country’s economy, then in their country’s institutions, and finally now in the country’s currency,” explained Peter Munk, the chairman of Barrick Gold of Canada, the world’s largest gold-mining company. “And so Americans started to buy gold.”