Hope springs eternal among policy makers in Europe’s beleaguered periphery. At five minutes to midnight in Athens, and with a bank run having started in Madrid, these policy makers cling to the forlorn hope that somehow Germany is going to relent on its strong opposition to euro bonds.

Prohibiting their bond trading will seriously weaken banks and the markets that banks supply with liquidity.

In the run-up to this weekend's G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European "austerity" with Barack Obama's economic policies.

We need better housing finance structures and ideas: The timing of the covered bond bill is certainly appropriate.

The United States overtly defaulted on its obligations in the 1930s, when the U.S. government refused to pay its gold bonds in gold, in violation of its clear promise to do so.

Judging by the financial market's renewed unease about Italy and Spain over the past week it would seem that all that the European Central Bank's €1 trillion liquidity injection in the European banking system bought was around four months of relative market calm.

The Obama administration's attempts to convince other countries to strengthen their currencies and the Fed's renewed bout of quantitative easing have faced staunch criticism in the United States and abroad, and have shown that the "currency wars" are far from over.

U.S. Treasury bonds are declining in value, as investors recognize the long-term debt implications of more deficit spending to pay for the just-passed health care reform.