A lot of people have this false notion that the U.S. has suddenly, as a nation, started adding debt like never before. This is because we hear about these giant government debt numbers every day, but rarely hear about the private side of the equation -- which is even larger and is falling.

Thus the point here is to disprove the notion that America is massively adding debt. The government is, but the country as a whole (inclusive of the government binge), isn't. In fact, debt growth is slowing like never before in recent history.

US Dollar/Swiss Franc is currently near 1.0160, after a major rally in the USD. This was fueled by the significantly better than expected Non Farm Payrolls (NFP) number of -11K compared to last month's -190K, reported last week.

Ahead of the report, the USD/CHF was essentially flat, hovering tightly near parity in anticipation, allowing volatility to shrink to the lowest levels since July 23, 2009, as marked by the extreme narrowness of the green Bollinger Bands, see the 4 hour chart below.

In an email note, Charles de Trenck of research firm Transport Trackers highlights how shipping companies could face substantial write-downs. In a similar fashion to banks right now, some of their assets are being carried on the balance sheet at far higher values than the current market value. So expect their balance sheets to be far worse than they look right now.

Transport Trackers: Brokers have highlighted a new all-time low for container charter rates this week (and the BDI traded back below 4,000...psychology playing its role here both on up and down sides...though some tankers did better this week).

Note that Australia is only one of three developed nations that will show positive GDP growth in 2009.

It has just half the unemployment rate of the U.S., sells China raw materials, and has a dynamic domestic economy.

BJ's (BJ) reported falling comparable sales, yet held its guidance for the all important fourth quarter. Comparable sales fell only 2.5%, and actually a weaker economy continues to help BJ's, given that strapped consumers are flocking to its discount pricing over other retail options.

The company is a great example of a business that has performed remarkably well through the U.S. economic downturn and could be interesting given that earnings, which were never hit that bad to begin with, could now be on the upswing. Meanwhile the stock remains well below 2008 highs despite the fact that it has been able to use this downturn to its advantage.

Kenneth Feinberg, the American pay czar, is slashing cash salaries for top employees in companies like Citi (C), Bank of America (BAC), and AIG by 90% on average, according to the WSJ. This will make these firms far less appealing to future talent, and one has to imagine that a lot of these top people must be polishing their resumes. A 90% cut means you can make 10x more, in terms of cash salary, somewhere else. (To be fair, note that Mr. Feinberg is shifting compensation towards other forms such as locked up stock options, thus total compensation isn't technically being cut 90%)

The problem here is that these cuts are clearly driven by public passions, not by economic logic. Salaries aren't threatening the stability of these companies - proper management going forward is. Sure, much of top management has been asleep at the wheel, but if you only offer tiny salaries going forward (on a relative basis to what these guys can make), then don't expect the best and the brightest.

Warren Buffett appears in the interview below, asserting that the U.S. economy has indeed passed the brink and that, more importantly, the system is not broken. The country's best days are ahead.

It's a healthy reminder that I believe can be extrapolated to Europe as well.

It's completely ridiculous that the new American "pay czar" has been able to deny former Bank of America (BAC) chief Ken Lewis part of his pay package.

The Treasury Department's pay czar pushed outgoing Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth D. Lewis into giving back about $1 million he received so far this year and forgoing the rest of his $1.5 million salary for 2009, say people familiar with the matter.

Ad agency WPP's (WPPGY) CEO believes that while ad spending will recover with an improving economy, it will never be the same as it was. One big reason for this is the transition from traditional media to the internet.

He explains that companies currently spend only 13% of their ad budget on web-based advertising, despite the fact that people now spend 20% of their time online. This alone implies that online advertising still has a long way to grow. If one imagines that we'll all spend increasing amounts of time online, and that ad budgets should track the amount of time we spend on any one type of media, then online advertising could easily double from where it is now. At least.

After the creation of a massive construction industry in China, it appears this industry is exporting its services worldwide. Tax payer stimulus dollars doled out by other governments, ostensibly in the interest of the local people, are a prime target.

With many countries in the world adopting stimulus plans to drive demand, China has been scrambling for these public spending dollars. And it is well placed to do so...

When will people get it through their skulls that the BDI is NOT an good indicator of the global economy? This has been a great example of how an untruth can spread whereby people just rely on what some analyst said with blind faith. Markets and economics aren't physics. And analysts aren't rocket scientists. Half of what they say is complete garbage. Such as when they suggest that the BDI is a good indicator for the direction of the global economy. My old colleague and boss Charles de Trenck suggests: maybe it's time to put the BDI to rest.

Losing its religion: For how many years have we come in first thing in the morning and checked the BDI before gulping down our coffee. Although I care more about container volumes, between 2002 and 2007 I pretty much checked the BDI, the BCI, etc. religiously. I always remembered it was a crutch, but I did the comparative analysis because it often worked and ‘cause everyone expected me to… But we can now leave the BDI behind a little…One less bottle of snake oil.

Your contrarian alarm should always go off whenever everyone in the world agrees on a market outlook. The same thus might apply to the outlook on the US dollar and America's financial health. Is the US debt really all that bad, relative to other countries in the world? If many other countries have similar amounts of debt relative to their GDPs, then how is the dollar doomed against their currencies?

Also, beyond debt to GDP, one needs to consider long-term growth factors as well. The US doesn't face a demographic time bomb the way China does, or a purely dying population as Japan. The graphic below, courtesy of Visual Economics, sheds some light on the US debt situation relative to some other high debt nations in the world.

Gary Burtless at the Brookings Institute makes a concise point that I feel is important to remember while being bombarded by the US government deficit debate. He inadvertently exposes some wrong-headed thinking at the same time.

The federal deficit represents a serious long-term problem. It is not, however, a threat to our economic recovery, nor will it be a threat anytime soon. Our near-term problem is weakness in private demand rather than excess government borrowing.

In an almost satirical twist to the healthcare debate, it turns out that Big French Pharma, in the form of Sanofi-Aventis (SNY), is now linked to anti-Obamacare protests via lobbying firm DLA Piper.

DLA ex-employee Dick Armey is chairman of Freedomworks, a pressure group that organizes town hall yell-ins. He was just forced to resign from DLA last week as a result of this relationship when Bristol-Myers (BMY) was recently found linked to Freedomworks through DLA as well.

Business Insider provides yet more evidence that much professional "investing" is actually short-term trading and speculation... The average holding period for New York Stock Exchange stocks has fallen to only six months (click to enlarge).

The best bull argument I can find in regards to the Chinese market is that the government has little choice but to keep liquidity flowing, even if they know this will be negative in the long-term.

Since a government "investigation" can't possibly yield much, and since they're saying flat-out that lending won't be capped, this sounds incredibly bullish. China isn't going to take away the punchbown -- as we've noted, they just can't. When even the slightest hint of lending curbs recently brought up, the market tanked nearly 7%. Imagine if the threats were real. The bubble must roll on.

It is interesting to note that speculative markets, not government institutions were the first to sound the alarm when it came to the US housing bubble. And actually... not only were government institutions asleep at the wheel in terms of warning people that prices had gone too far, but they were actually contributing to the problem and helping to inflate the bubble further.

It was speculative markets that sounded the alarm in 2007, keeping future capital away from jumping off a cliff, and preventing the bubble from running longer and crashing harder. (Hat tip to one of our readers for this great nugget)

The US is increasing its sales of treasury inflation protected securities (TIPS) in response to Chinese interest. While TIPS will remain a tiny market in comparison to the $6.66bn US government bond market, it looks like we could have $10bn in new supply flowing into a market which issued just $44bn in the nine months to June 2009. That's a lot of new supply in relative terms. The TIPS market fell on the news, no doubt due to fears of this potential oversupply, but might there be a positive angle to this development?

The Treasury Department, responding to growing demand from China and other investors, will boost the sale of inflation-protected bonds that hold their value as consumer prices rise....

For the third time in under ten days, the Shanghai market has fallen based on fears the Chinese government might merely rein in profligate lending. Earnings have nothing to with it, this isn't an earnings scare. Nor is it some sort of economic data point which has shaken the market for the third time in ten days. Rather, it is simply the fear that the Chinese government might actually try stop bad loans from happening and help create a healthier financial system. Thus the market is falling on fears that the country might actually come to its senses when it comes to lending and the use of liquidity. Efforts to have a smarter economy hurt the market? That is a problem. It clearly exposes the market as supported by nothing but greater fool theory.

The Shanghai Composite Index lost 2.4 percent after the People’s Bank of China said it will fine-tune monetary policy where necessary and guide “appropriate” loan growth...

The Washington Post published an in-depth article following an unemployed US family day by day for months, who are "out of options", in Indiana. Thing is, it seems the family they picked made, and continues to make, a lot of horribly irresponsible financial decisions. Yet from a global perspective, they still have a pretty high standard of living relative to most people in the world, even those in pretty developed countries, given they still have two cars, a dirt bike, hunting rifles, an xbox, a blackberry, watch cable tv and buy lotto tickets regularly. Their main problem is that they never saved any money even when times were good.

He sinks into the couch, foot jiggling, his gaze traveling from his wife to the television to the darkness outside, broken now and then by the distant glow of passing headlights.