Creating individual accounts in the social security system would lead to a massive increase in payments of financial fees to private financial management companies.

Under Plan II of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security (CSSS), the net present value of such payments would be $940 billion.

These expenses amount to more than 25 percent of the existing deficit in social security over the same period. Rather than using the money to close the social security gap, the plan would transfer this money to private financial managers and mutual fund companies.

If the government were to offset the cost of these fees by raising the retirement age, the age would need to rise by about 6 months - just to cover the administrative costs of the individual accounts, not even the accounts themselves.

The fees would be the largest windfall gain in American financial history. The $940 billion payment to financial companies would be an increase more than 8 times larger than the decrease in revenue from the 2000-2002 collapse of the bubble.

President-elect Barack Obama will name the 81-year-old Volcker as chairman of the new President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board today ...

Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, will be the top staff official on the board and be a member of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

Hank Paulson's plan to save the economy? "Truly idiotic," says [Charles] Calomiris, who is the Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia University's business school. "This whole thing has been complete nonsense. We did it in the 1930s ten times better than this. This isn't complicated."

On Tuesday, [Henry] Paulson almost casually unveiled a new $800 billion scheme to ease the flow of credit to homebuyers and small consumers, unfreezing such vital economic engines as auto loans and credit card lending.

The plan calls for the Federal Reserve to soak up $600 billion of mortgage-backed securities in a bid to ease home loan rates, and also to buy up $200 billion in consumer debt.

That brings the total money pledged to rescue the disintegrating economy to nearly $8 trillion — more, even in inflation-adjusted dollars, than America spent fighting all her wars in the last 100 years.

The Federal Reserve's attempt to stabilize the housing market set off a chain reaction across the U.S. on Tuesday, dropping interest rates and quickly spurring a burst of refinancing activity by borrowers eager to lower their mortgage costs.

Oil Drum's summary of the story: A spokesman for the National Grid said, apparently with a straight face, there were "suggestions" that the credit crunch "could lower demand, so the situation has become more comfortable."

So there we have it. The only thing that will keep the lights on in the years ahead is the fact that the economy is collapsing.

Desperate Gazans crowded into banks Monday, jostling to get to the front of lines as they sought to withdraw money amid a worsening currency shortage caused by Israeli sanctions.

Israel has refused to allow cash to enter Gaza in recent weeks to ratchet up pressure on the ruling Hamas militant group. With the supply of currency dwindling, banks have limited withdrawals over the past two weeks, and some have posted signs telling customers they cannot take out any more money.

The Energy Department is an odd beast. Thirty-six percent of its $25 billion budget is related to national security, dealing with nuclear materials from things like decommissioned nuclear weapons and naval reactors. Another 25 percent of its budget goes to environmental management and civilian nuclear waste management. Another sizable chunk goes to the national laboratories, over which the secretary exerts modest control at best. So it hasn't been the most sought-after cabinet post.

But, it could become more connected to actual energy issues because President-elect Obama wants to make a big research and development and subsidy push for carbon capture and storage, which would make coal use more palatable in an era of climate change worries.

That would happen through the Energy Department. The Energy Department could also get more involved in pushing for renewable energy, such as geothermal. If there is a program to promote electric cars through some sort of infrastructure spending, then that might go to Energy (if it doesn't go to the Transportation Department). Finally, Obama wants to do more to promote energy efficiency and the Energy Department is the home for setting appliance standards and other energy efficiency goals.

Facebook has won a $873 million judgment against a Canadian man who sent some four million sex spam messages to users of the social network, AP reports.

It will be a long, long time before alleged spammer Adam Guerbuez of Montreal is found, much less coughs up that much money, but Facebook hopes the size of the judgment will scare off other spammers.

Global warming is melting Arctic ice faster than the military projected, posing greater challenges for Canadian Forces already facing a deteriorating security situation half a world away in Afghanistan, says Canada's top soldier.

"Global warming is happening very quickly. I think any projection we have has been underestimated. Flying over Ellesmere Island and not seeing very much snow up there and seeing the Arctic Ocean as a blue water ocean was quite revealing to me," Gen. Walt Natynczyk, the chief of the defence staff, said Monday in a candid and sweeping assessment of the challenges faced by the military from the sun-baked deserts of Afghanistan to the not-so-frozen Far North.