It’s depressing to watch, but it is missing the point that the Volcker rule would not have prevented the loss and is probably unworkable.

Why are some balance sheets better for certain assets than others? Well, some are less leveraged, some have longer-term funding, some have government favors and subsidies, and some may just be stuffees.

Numerous corporations have embraced the concept of the triple bottom line: financial, environmental, and social.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would be wise to learn from the Titanic and slow his second experiment with quantitative easing, the expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet known as QE2.

On April 13, 2012, the US Department of the Treasury released new cost estimates for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Looking principally at actual and projected contractual cash flows, the document concludes that: "Overall, the government is now expected to at least break even on its financial stability programs and may realize a positive return." 

Make the Treasury Department truly responsible for managing all the government's debt. Managing only Treasury securities deals with only about half, and sometimes less than half, of the effective government debt.

Within a plan to reduce outlays by $6.2 trillion over the next decade, Paul Ryan has found a way to replace $214 billion of the $487 billion in military spending cuts in Obama's budget.

Read this with charts as a PDF 

In the months ahead, there will be a renewed intensification of the European debt crisis that could have major implications for the US economy.