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While our political leaders are seriously about to spend 1 trillion dollars so that banks can give out loans to an American population buried under a mountain of debt, there are some serious events taking place in the world that might make conserving a rainy day fund a good idea.

The Taliban has apparently taken over the Swat district of Pakistan, and has set up everything from a provisional government to a court system. According to Nightwatch, 80% of the police have abandoned the district and 180 schools have been closed. The Taliban insurgency in Pakistan is winning, and in the near term, a struggle for power in Islamabad is looking more and more likely every day.

Following the complete pullout of Ethiopian troops from Somalia, the Somali government has fallen. The only word consistently used to describe the transition taking place is uncertainty.

While no one is, nor should, take Russian naval activity as a threat, it may get peoples attention that Russia announced today intentions to start building a naval base in Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region this year. The establishment of a permanent naval base in that region would all but insure Georgia will never get that territory back, although it might prevent a war with Ukraine when the Russians are asked to leave Sevastopol when the current lease expires in 2017.

Finally, do you know where the F-22s are? While not related to this, still noteworthy the Air Force picked the post inauguration time to forward deploy. I guess they expected some noise, and have instead given the North Koreans something to talk about.