A record-high 49% of the population lived in a household receiving some type of government benefit in the second quarter of 2010, according to Census data reported by The Wall Street Journal. Most of this group received so-called "means tested" benefits like food stamps, subsidized housing or Medicaid. Many are also benefiting from unemployment insurance spending, which has quadrupled since the downturn.

Is this statistic a watershed mark of our decline into socialism, a totally reasonable outcome from the Great Recession, or, somehow, both things at the same time?

This story was originally published in The Atlantic...and was picked up by finance.yahoo.com. I thank reader Scott Pluschau for sending it along...and the link is here.

More than four years after the United States fell into recession, many Americans have resorted to raiding their savings to get them through the stop-start economic recovery...and in an ominous sign for America's economic growth prospects, workers are paring back contributions to college funds and growing numbers are borrowing from their retirement accounts.

Some policymakers worry that a recent spike in credit card usage could mean that people, many of whom are struggling on incomes that have lagged inflation, are taking out new debt just to meet the costs of day-to-day living.

American households "have been spending recently in a way that did not seem in line with income growth. So somehow they've been doing that through perhaps additional credit card usage," Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said on Friday.

This Reuters story was posted on their website yesterday morning...and I thank Roy Stephens for his first offering of the day. The link is here.

This story definitely deserves to be in a special folder in the top drawer of the "You-can't-make-this-stuff-Up" filing cabinet.

A Massachusetts woman's cupcake sparked a potential security threat when she tried to board a plane.

Rebecca Hains said she was going through security at the airport in Las Vegas when a TSA agent pulled her aside and said the cupcake frosting was "gel-like" enough to constitute a security risk.

Hains said she was able to pass through Boston's Logan International Airport security with two cupcakes, but she was stopped on the way back when she tried to return with one of them.

"We went out with two cupcakes in a jar and TSA in Boston said these look delicious, but TSA in Las Vegas thought they looked dangerous," Hains said.

This story was posted over at the kplctv.com website between Christmas and New Years...and I thank reader 'David in California' for sending it to me in the wee hours of this morning. The link is here.

Clearing houses -- the plumbers of high finance -- could become the next casualties of the crisis as regulators insist that banks run their riskiest and private trades through them.

At the moment banks conduct over-the-counter trades between themselves: one to one dealings often involving multimillion-euro bets on differences in interest or other rates, the scale and complexity of which can be difficult to track.

But with the financial crisis still raging and banks, hedge funds and governments alike faced with unforeseen levels of debt, regulators are now forcing this shadowy, $600-trillion industry into the light.

The question being asked by industry insiders is whether the clearing houses, also known as central counterparties (CCPs), are any more secure.

This Reuters story, filed from London on Monday morning, is courtesy of West Virginia reader Elliot Simon...and is definitely worth the read. The link is here.

Writing for King World News, geopolitical analyst James G. Rickards argues that the U.S. dollar, the euro, and the Chinese yuan are in a dance toward devaluation, first against each other and ultimately against gold. Rickards' commentary is headlined "Currency Love Triangle" and it's posted at the KWN website.

Eric sent me this story early on Tuesday morning, but yesterday's column was already jammed full...and I didn't have room for it until today. The link is here...and it's definitely worth reading as well.

Imposing austerity measures as countries slow towards recession is a fundamentally flawed response, said Mr. Stiglitz, who won the Nobel prize in 2001 for his work on how markets work inefficiently.

"The answer, even though they see over and over again that austerity leads to collapse of the economy, the answer over and over [from politicians] is more austerity," said Mr. Stiglitz to the Asian Financial Forum, a gathering of over 2,000 finance professionals, businessmen and government officials in Hong Kong.

"It reminds me of medieval medicine," he said. "It is like blood-letting, where you took blood out of a patient because the theory was that there were bad humours.

"And very often, when you took the blood out, the patient got sicker. The response then was more blood-letting until the patient very nearly died. What is happening in Europe is a mutual suicide pact," he said.

This story was posted in The Telegraph yesterday morning...and is Roy Stephens second offering of the day. The link is here.

The European Union threatened a lawsuit against Hungary for encroaching on the central bank’s independence, pressing Prime Minister Viktor Orban to resolve a dispute that halted talks on international aid for the country.

The European Commission, the EU’s regulatory arm, also started infringement proceedings against Orban’s government for political meddling with the judiciary and the data-protection authority. The commission is sending a warning letter about each of the three matters and ordering Hungary to bring its legislation into line with EU standards to avoid court cases.

“The decisions we have taken are a reflection of our determination to make sure that EU law, both in letter and in spirit, are fully respected,” commission President Jose Barroso told reporters today in Strasbourg, France. “We do not want the shadow of doubt on respect for democratic principles and values to remain over the country any longer.”

This Bloomberg story was co-filed from Budapest and Brussels yesterday...and is courtesy or Washington state reader S.A. The link is here.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán came into power on a wave of political disillusionment. But his policies have not only caused many to question his commitment to democracy, but have also steered Hungary to the brink of insolvency.

Hungary is running out of money -- and the economy is faltering badly. Rating agencies have downgraded the country's sovereign bonds to junk status, and creditors are now charging the government about 10 percent in interest on new loans. Last week, the European Commission even threatened to withhold funds in 2013, arguing that Budapest is not abiding by the deficit rules.

But the country's real problem is Viktor Orbán. The German newspaper Die Welt has called the right-wing nationalist prime minister of European Union member state Hungary, whose Fidesz Party holds a two-thirds majority in parliament, a "Puszta Putin," a reference to the plains of Hungary. A new constitution, which guarantees him a frightening amount of power, has been in effect since Jan. 1. Orbán has removed the word "Republic" from the country's official name, which is now simply "Hungary." His supporters are staunchly behind his "national revolution."

This is fascinating deep-background story on what's happening in Hungary...and you certainly won't find a story with this kind of depth anywhere on this side of the Atlantic. If you have the time, it's certainly worth the read. It's another Roy Stephens contribution...and it was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday. The link is here.

In a company press release after the market closed yesterday, Sprott Physical Silver Trust announced a follow-on offering of trust units. This offering will close before the markets open today in New York.

I knew last week that an offering was coming, but I just didn't know the timing of it. Like you, dear reader, I'll be very interested in seeing just how much of the $1.5 billion shelf offering will get taken up...and we won't have too long to wait. I'll report on it in this space tomorrow.

The press release is posted over at the marketwire.com website...and I lifted it from a GATA release yesterday. The link is here.

Eric King sent me this Rick Rule blog yesterday evening. It's posted over at the King World News website...and it's certainly worth your time. The link is here.

Central banks increased the amount of gold they lent for the first time in a decade in 2011, as they used their bullion reserves to help commercial banks raise US dollars.

Although central banks hold one sixth of all the gold ever mined in their reserves, their activities in the bullion market are opaque, with not a single institution revealing its day-to-day operations. In addition to holding gold for their reserves, some central banks also trade the metal, lending it on the open market in order to obtain a yield.

Thomson Reuters GFMS, the precious metal consultancy that publishes benchmark statistics on the gold market, on Tuesday said that the quantity of gold lent by central banks had risen last year for the first time since 2000.

There's obviously been a sea change regarding gold over at the FT recently...as any discussion such as this ten year ago would have been heresy. This story is posted in the clear in this GATA release...and the link is here. It is, of course, a must read.