As the U.S. continues to rack up more than $1 trillion of new debt every year, Americans are beginning to worry about who we owe this money to and how much power our creditors have over us.
One global markets watcher says "massive deleveraging" is the source of the slowdown in the global economy, and will remain so.
The latest positive numbers in the housing market have not persuaded economist Gary Shilling, a longtime housing bear, to change his downbeat forecasts.
"I think China has lots of room to maintain its growth, stabilize it, but it has to shift the emphasis" to focus on its domestic market, says Barry Bosworth, senior fellow at Brookings Institution.