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Budget Deficit Hits $463 Billion usatoday.com — The federal budget deficit hit a new record in the just-completed 2008 budget year under the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The record $438 billion shortfall for the budget year that ended last week is up from $162 billion posted last year. The previous record of $413 billion was posted in 2004. CBO said that with the economy in a slump, revenues dropped by almost 2 percent. Corporate income receipts dropped by $65 billion, or nearly 18 percent. At the same time, individual income tax revenues declined by 1.6 percent. The deficit is virtually certain to balloon even higher next year as the government sorts out the financial crisis and taps a $700 billion Treasury fund to buy toxic mortgage-related securities.

Treasury Outsources Bailout washingtonpost.com — The Treasury Department this week plans to start outsourcing the management of up to $700 billion in troubled securities, using special contracting authorities that enable it to retain private portfolio managers, custodians and other financial services consultants without following standard acquisition procedures. The department's quick turn to the private sector will help it prepare for the massive task of overseeing mortgages and other financial assets to be acquired by the government. But it means that the government has little time to assess the companies that will be partners in what could become one of the largest public-sector funds in American history. Some of the same firms that have played roles in the rise and collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market may end up guiding the government as the bailout unfolds, department officials said.

Retirement Funds Lose $2 Trillion washingtonpost.com — The stock market's prolonged tumble has wiped out about $2 trillion in Americans' retirement savings in the past 15 months, a blow that could force workers to stay on the job longer than planned, rein in spending and possibly further stall an economy reliant on consumer dollars, Congress's top budget analyst said. For many Americans, pensions and 401(k) plans are their only form of savings. The dwindling of these assets — about a 20 percent decline overall — is another setback just as many people are grappling with higher gas and food prices, more credit card debt, declining home values and less access to loans.

Lawmakers Slam Executives' Post-Bailout Retreat hosted.ap.org — Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown. AIG sent its executives to the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles even as the company tapped into an $85 billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy. The resort tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees. The retreat didn't include anyone from the financial products division that nearly drove AIG under, but lawmakers still were enraged over thousands of dollars spent on outing for executives of AIG's main U.S. life insurance subsidiary.

JOE WANTZ
A Real Solution for our Economy ourfuture.org — The national conversation has been focused squarely on the economy in the last several weeks, with pundits and experts breathlessly declaring a financial catastrophe of epic scale. Of course, those of us who live in the real world knew the economy has been in trouble far before Wall Street failed.

JONATHAN FREEDLAND
This is a Crisis of Democracy guardian.co.uk — The solution is surely for governments to realize that if they are weak, the high priests of high finance are even weaker. The politicians should provide the help the banks need, but with the tightest of strings attached, regulating finance so closely that it can never again gorge itself the way it has these past few years. Democracy has to assert itself once more — and tame this beast.

ADRIANNE APPEL
Bailing Out a Boat Full of Holes ipsnews.net — The U.S. Treasury's bonanza from Congress to hand out 700 billion dollars to Wall Street is not what the country needs to right its shaky economy.

NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN
The Dow's Decline and Fall thenation.com — This is one of those days your financial adviser never told you about. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped below 10,000, taking with it the savings of millions. How the money runs out and goes who knows where!

HENRY BLODGET
So What Happens Now? alternet.org — Now that the government has been terrified into rubber-stamping the Wall Street bailout, what happens now?

AL JAZEERA
The End of American Capitalism? alternet.org — Does the crisis signal the end of U.S.-style capitalism? And if so, what are the lessons learned? Five prominent economists offer their short take.

SAM PIZZIGATI
Wall Street's Meltdown: How America Caught Speculative Fever alternet.org — To fix the U.S. economy, we don't need a bailout that rescues the rich. We need a bailout that soaks them.

GIDEON RACHMAN
Conservatism Overshoots Its Limits ft.com — The market for ideas — like the market for shares — always overshoots. Ideas become fashionable and get pushed to their logical conclusion and beyond, as their backers succumb to “irrational exuberance.” Then comes the crash. What we are experiencing now is the bust that has followed the 30-year bull run in conservative ideas that began with the Thatcher-Reagan revolution of 1979-80.

SUSAN J. DOUGLAS
The End of Aggressive Ignorance? inthesetimes.com — There is a war being waged now, in the waning days of the Bush administration and the campaign, against the triumph of aggressive ignorance. Aggressive ignorance defiantly shoves its utter lack of knowledge in your face and brays: "Facts? We don’t need no stinkin' facts!"

DANIEL GROSS
Subprime Suspects newsweek.com — The right blames the credit crisis on poor minority homeowners. This is not merely offensive, but entirely wrong.

DAVID SIROTA
The Difference Between a Bailout and a Rescue Britain teaches us what the difference between an economic rescue and a Wall Street bailout is.

ISAIAH J. POOLE
Depression Conditions That Demand A New Deal Response The economy that conservatives until a few weeks ago were calling "fundamentally sound" is actually, in many respects, in the worst shape it's been in since the Great Depression, according to a report by economist Charles McMillion.