Many people may still be picking and choosing their financial battles carefully in today's economic environment, but as far as spending money, Americans did indeed reach deeper into their wallets last year.  Retail sales nationally exceeded $4.4 trillion for calendar year 2010, an increase of +6.6% over our spending from 2009 and its best year-over-year change since 1999.  The stock market continued to move forward as the S&P 500 finished trading last Friday (1/14/11) with its 7^th consecutive weekly gain.  The stock index is up +2.9% YTD, having closed the week at its highest level since 8/28/08 or more than 28 months ago (source: BTN Research).    

First it was Greece (a $146 billion bailout in February 2010), then Ireland (a $113 billion bailout in November 2010) and now possibly Portugal.  Until it was able to sell $1.6 billion of long-term debt last Wednesday (1/12/11) at lower interest rates than had been anticipated, it appeared that Portugal was going to become the 3^rd European nation in less than a year to require an international bailout as a result of its overwhelming level of government debt.  The yield on the 10-year Portuguese government note is 6.7% today, double the yield of 10-year US Treasury note (source: BTN Research).    

Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit President Obama in Washington D.C. this week, a critical meeting for the heads of the 2 largest economies in the world.  China would like to see higher interest rates in the USA (which theoretically would produce a stronger dollar and weaker yuan) and America would like to see China purchase more US exports (source: White House).