They were shackled to sinking incomes, while the cost of living rose with the tide.

FORBES: Market Needs A New Jackson Hole Speech

Spain is overbanked and profitability is sinking quickly at these institutions, thanks to a higher cost of funding and shrinking credit.

ECONOMIST: The euro crisis

These are hardly excessive growth rates in normal times, much less in an economy with almost 10 percent unemployment, with capacity utilization down from the 80s to the 60s, and with nonbank credit sinking, productivity growing rapidly, and with unit labor cost declining.

FORBES: Where's The Inflation Threat?

He has also written several books, including Globalization and Its Discontents, The Roaring Nineties, Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics, Fair Trade For All, Making Globalization Work, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict and Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.

FORBES: Intelligent Investing Briefing Book

Although the world's largest oil rig finally stopped sinking yesterday--four days after three explosions left it lurching more than 30 degrees--the accident could cost Brazil's Petrobras , which owns the 40-story platform, half a billion dollars.

FORBES: Disaster Of The Day: Petrobras