By industry convention, a bear market is defined as a decline of more than 20% from a prior peak.  Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ composite closed in bear market territory.

Follow below to read the tale of the tape.

The US Treasury Department released today its Financial Report on the United States. In short, the financial position is grim.

While the Administration will emphasize that the annual federal deficit shrunk to $163 billion for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2007, that’s not the real story.  The real story is that the fiscal exposure of the US government is $53 trillion, a number which has increased under Bush more that $32 trillion from about $20 trillion as of September 30, 2000.