In 2001, the U.S. gross public debt was about $6 trillion; a decade later it was $14 trillion; by the end of 2012 it exceeded $16 trillion. A large part of that increase was absorbed by foreign holders, especially central banks in China and Japan. With the U.S. government gross debt ratio now in...

As this piece is being written, the Obama administration is exploring the idea of creating one or more aggregator institutions, “bad” banks, to take illiquid assets - mostly mortgages and mortgage-related securities of uncertain value - off the hands of the private banking system. Indeed, by...