Here's a shocker! Over the next decade the U.S. government is expected to rack up $9 trillion in debt. More than half that amount, $4.8 trillion, will be in interest payments.

To further emphasize the depth of the problem, in 2015 interest due will be $533 billion, equal to 1/3 of the federal income taxes!

Right now, the Treasury is in a sweet spot with regards to interest payments. With interest rates at near zero, we are able to finance trillions of dollars of debt with practically no interest payments. That scenario is about to change. The change could be rather quick. If the economy heats up, interest rates will rise and so too will interest payments. Because the debt is so large, only a small rise in interest payments could increase the interest burden by a large amount.

The only thing that has been devalued faster than our precious dollar is the perpetual slide in government credibility. Over the years we have heard countless times about the importance of a strong dollar from our leaders.

"Our administration believes in and will do everything in its power to support a strong dollar" or something like this has been spewed out by Republicans and Democrats alike, yet there is little evidence that the policies put in place over the past century have done anything of the sort. Perhaps there was one person that took the heat and did the right thing -- Paul Volcker, during the Carter administration, who had to deal with dizzying inflation.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did something Monday that Fed chairs rarely do: he commented on the dollar.

Comments about the dollar are almost exclusively left to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, but on Monday Bernanke, in a speech before the Economic Club of New York, said the large movement of capital precipitated by the financial crisis "resulted in a marked increase in the dollar," and those flows are now returning to their former status, due to improved credit market conditions and the stabilization of global economic activity.

In a speech to the Economic Club of New York, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke addressed concerns about the falling US dollar.

How? He says he is "attentive to the implications of changes in the value of the dollar" and will "monitor these developments closely".

That's a wonderfully Orwellian turn of phrase because it means precisely nothing.

U.S. stock futures followed global markets higher Monday morning as Japan announced its economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace and governments around the world said they would maintain their stimulus policies. Investors are also awaiting a speech from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, GM's first earnings report since emerging from bankruptcy, as well as more economic data, including retail sales and manufacturing.

Japan's gross domestic product grew at an annual pace of 4.8% in the third quarter, its largest expansion in more than two years. This was higher than economists' 2.6% projection. The world's second largest economy relies heavily on exports and demand at home and overseas improved, indicating its trading partners are also recovering.

The federal budget year ended in October. The October deficit number set a record of $176.4 billion, which was higher than the $150 billion economists had predicted.

For the budget year 2009, the deficit reached $1.42 trillion. That too was an all-time record. This year's deficit was $958 billion above the 2008 deficit. October was the 13th straight month to show a deficit.

The Federal Reserve and Wall Street executives are discussing a new way to provide bank capital in times of crisis. They want to issue a new security called a contingent convertible (CoCo).

What is a CoCos and how does it work? CoCos are hybrid securities, In normal times they operate like a bond and pay coupons to investors. However, in times of crisis they automatically convert into equity. If bank capital fell below prescribed limits they would trigger the conversion from bonds to equity.

A wise trader once told me: "It's all in the price. All the thoughts, ideas and emotions of all the traders throughout the world are in that one number."

Gold is trading at $1,118.00 per ounce. What is that number telling us? Pure and simple, the market is telling us that inflation is on the way. The Indian government just bought 200 tons of gold valued at over $7 trillion dollars. In other words they exchanged $7 trillion US dollars for the 200 tons of gold.

At the same time the December US dollar contract traded below 75.00 on a trade-weighted basis. What is that number telling us? Traders are turning in dollars for other investments, mainly stocks and commodities.

U.S. stock futures were higher Wednesday morning, indicating stocks will open on an upbeat note after investors expectation that interest rates will remain low for some time increased following speeches from Federal Reserve officials. As the dollar further fell, investors turned to asset buying, pushing stocks higher.

Stocks looked for direction Tuesday, finishing the day mixed and not much changed, as Wall Street took a break from a 6-day rally. Today, U.S. bond markets are closed for Veteran's Day.

Don't count me among Henry Blodget's admirers, but he makes an interesting argument in a recent video posted on BusinessInsider.com (see below). Blodget argues that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has a "secret plan" to keep interest rates too low for too long on purpose. Why? To encourage inflation. According to Blodget, Bernanke has two good reasons for doing this:

• Faster economic growth, which leads to more jobs, fewer angry constituents, and a Congress that's happier with Ben Bernanke.
• Faster erosion of the real value of our debts. Consumers and the government are drowning under a massive debt load. One way to make paying off this debt easier is to make the dollars it is denominated in worth less. Bernanke will try to hasten this process as much as possible, taking it right to the point where our creditor China is mad as hell -- but not quite to the point where China actually stops lending to us.

Consumer borrowing fell for the eighth straight month in September. This record-setting streak is due largely to tightening by lenders, unemployment and the conservative preference to pay down debt rather than spend. This widespread fit of fiscal responsibility, economists fret, could prevent a recovery from taking root, since consumer spending is responsible for 70% of the U.S. economy. This conventional thinking, of course, overlooks the fact that an eventual increase in spending that isn't fueled by consumer spending will yield a recovery that's more likely to last.

According to the Federal Reserve, borrowing fell at an annual rate of $14.8 billion in September -- it's biggest drop since July and much larger than the $10 billion predicted by economists. The behavior is exactly what you'd find in people worried about losing their jobs or focused on rebuilding safety funds and investment portfolios. Those who want to borrow are finding banks won't be complicit this time, as they clamp down on lending practices.

US Senator Bernie Sanders, independent from Vermont, is known for his straightforward and unbiased positions.

His new legislative proposal is to break up big banks that are deemed "too big to fail." To quote Mr. Sanders: "if an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We should break them up so they are no longer in a position to bring down our entire economy."

Is a Fed rate tightening up ahead any time soon? Despite concern that low, real, short-term interest rates are hurting the dollar. Don't count on it.

First, the U.S. Federal Reserve wants to encourage banks to lend -- for auto purchases, and especially for business loans -- and nothing prompts banks to lend, even in tighter capital times, like low-interest-rate or zero-interest-rate money.

The US dollar is down 20% since 2002 on a trade weighted basis. Other world economies like China are dynamic, with growth rates of 8 and 9%. With that kind of clout, countries like China, India and Brazil, can choose where to place their reserves.

Slowly, developing countries are shifting their reserves away from the dollar into the euro and yen. Neil Mellor, strategist at Bank of New York Mellon Corp (NYSE: BK), which has some $20 trillion dollars in assets under custody said: "I don't think there will be an imminent move, but it is quite clear there's a plan to shift reserves to a more balanced portfolio."

Barclays Capital Research reported that central banks placed 63% of new cash in non US currencies between April and July.

Wednesday, the Fed announced that interest rates would remain at zero to 0.25% for at least the next six months.

The Fed statement read as follows: "weak conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period." The only change in the Fed's policy was a tweak in the amount of corporate debt that the Fed intends to buy.