Heard about the next cold war? It doesn't involve Russia, China or even the forces of communism, but Japan.

The dollar has tanked this year, though the drop has been fairly steady and orderly. That may be about to change.

China is facing the biggest challenge to its currency policy since the start of the global recession as economists warn the peg to the dollar risks causing an asset bubble.

A year ago, we were hit by the greatest financial crisis in a century. Its scale was greater than the 1929 Crash, principally because of its more global nature.

It's kind of heavy, isn't it? Those are the first words people seem to utter when they heft a Droid smart phone. And the answer is, yeah, it is — maybe because so much is packed into it.

“In price is knowledge,” one editor used to scream at me. Whether or not you believed in efficient markets, you could be sure the price of a bond, a currency or a commodity was trying to tell you something about the outlook for growth, inflation or monetary policy; all you had to do was listen and translate.

The government wants financial companies, not taxpayers, to pay the tab for too-big-to-fail firms that run into trouble. As good as that sounds, it may not work.

It's as provocative an argument as an economist can make: China is stealing jobs. Paul Krugman did it on Oct. 22, raising blood-pressure levels around Beijing.

The recession is over. Yea verily yea, as the knights of old might say with chalice raised.

The clock is ticking. Each day that passes without Japan's officials hunkering down to boost growth, halt deflation, prepare for an aging population and increase competitiveness is a blow to the nation's 126 million people.